Their first Christmas. Madeline had stayed up late chatting with Eddie the night before, telling him all about her trip to India and as little about Spain as she could get away with. He even stayed and helped her wrap presents, then he surprised them both, it seemed, by saying he would stay the night and the next day as well. He left the room to call Jane and tell her he wouldn’t be joining her and her family. Clearly there was something going on between him and Jane. Madeline had always thought Jane was simply the wrong choice for Eddie. As a person, she was fine, but she wasn’t good for Eddie, who needed, in Madeline’s opinion, someone less abrasive. She didn’t know how they’d lasted so long.
She’d set her alarm for seven and was only able to force herself out of bed because she knew there was a café au lait in her immediate future. But downstairs it was so quiet, and the lights on the tree were blinking away, flashing against the gold star Bindi told her he had chosen himself and put on top with his uncle’s help. Maybe there were too many presents under the tree for one child—her brother seemed to think so—but so be it. She wanted to spoil Bindi, to make up for whatever had landed him in that orphanage, but such bounty didn’t have to turn him rotten. She would teach him to be generous as well. She had a sense he already was. And she wasn’t going to change who she was or pretend that he wouldn’t benefit from his new circumstances. She’d worked her entire adult life to build her career, and she’d been truly fortunate to succeed. Plenty of deserving, talented women didn’t. It was a privilege she and Bindi would now share, but it would be her duty to teach him what privilege meant as much as what it didn’t mean. It was the cumulative weight of all the big lessons she would have to teach him—the immense responsibility she felt for molding the mind of a future man in this world—that struck her so often and so completely with momentary fears and doubts. What would she learn about herself in the process? What if she didn’t like what she saw? What if he didn’t?
She shook her head and took a step back, as if to rebuff the questions. Not today. Today she wanted to be like one of those families on an after-school special, just enjoying the holiday together. Being enough for each other. Playing Christmas music and opening presents. Feasting on too much food and just enough holiday cheer. And Eddie would be there with them today as well. She had left his present in her room, where she’d wrapped it before going to bed. The stockings were also upstairs. She wanted nothing more than to sit down and close her eyes, but she forced herself up the stairs. Maybe they could have pancakes for breakfast. Eddie liked bananas in his. Bindi was allergic to bananas, she’d discovered on the plane. It was the only allergy he knew of. She might have some frozen strawberries, or they could decorate the pancakes with raisins, if he liked those. She crept past his room quietly, resisting the urge to peek in. And just moments after she’d placed Eddie’s gift among the rest and hung the stockings, Bindi was coming down the stairs, sleepy-eyed and barefoot. She wondered if he felt cold and turned up the heat on her way to him.
“Merry Christmas,” she said, holding her coffee to one side while she squeezed him close with her free arm.
“Merry Christmas,” he said, and his eyes grew wide upon seeing all the gifts under the tree. He looked at Madeline, asking without words if they were for him. She gave him an encouraging smile and said he could open one before breakfast.
“Pick one that’s from me and come to the kitchen. I thought we’d have pancakes.”
“With coconut?”
“Coconut?” She recalled a whole coconut out of which she’d once drunk a piña colada in Mexico. “Do you mean dried, shredded coconut? Little pieces?”
“Not dry,” he said, seeking the right description. “Like sticky and sweet and rolled up inside.”
Rolled up? Apparently they were not talking about the same kinds of pancakes. Eddie walked in, stretching his arms overhead. He was more adventurous in the kitchen. Perhaps he could figure out the pancakes.
“How’s everyone this morning?” he asked. “Merry Christmas.”
It was odd, all of them there together. She could hear it in her brother’s voice, too, and see it in his expression, a smile that said it was all a bit surreal. But who cared, if it felt this good? Surprisingly, Bindi had chosen one of the flat boxes, which any other kid would have cast aside, knowing they contained clothes. She almost told him to pick a different one, but he’d already torn the wrapping open and was removing the lid from the box. He slowed down now, gently unfolding the tissue paper to reveal a sweater inside. She nodded to indicate he could pull it out. Eddie walked over and felt the sweater with one hand, then put the other on Bindi’s shoulder.
“That’s a good-looking sweater,” he said. “Oh, I think there’s something else in there.”
Bindi set the sweater on his lap and pulled out the Levi’s below as if they were some great hidden treasure and not a pair of blue jeans. “Thank you, Mama Maddy.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie. Now, how about you tell Uncle Eddie just how you like those pancakes? He’s a real whiz in the kitchen. I’ll make some orange juice and put on some Christmas music. Sound good? Oh, Eddie, there’s coffee in the pot and some hot milk on the stove.”
She pulled a can of concentrate from the freezer and set it on the counter. Then she called Bindi over to help her. Her grandmother always let her make the juice. Madeline was happy to have these small lessons in life to balance the big ones they had ahead. Everything was new and exciting for Bindi. That made it so for her, as well. What a gift this was. He stirred and stirred until the frozen block grew smaller and finally became something he could break apart. Eddie, meanwhile, was at work on those mystery pancakes. She left her boys in the kitchen and went to put on some Christmas music, shocked to find that she wouldn’t actually mind hearing it. For once she wasn’t sick of it, and this, she realized, was because she’d been out of the country for most of December.
Eddie had managed to concoct a pancake-crepe hybrid, which he then filled with strawberries he’d cooked down with sugar and rolled up per Bindi’s directions. Bindi seemed to love every bite. And Madeline couldn’t get over the day. She rested a hand on her brother’s shoulder and thanked him. He smiled at her seriousness. It wasn’t merely a thank you for breakfast. She didn’t know what it was for, exactly, except being there with them.
“Who’s ready for more presents?” she asked.
Bindi looked at his uncle, then at Madeline, then slowly raised his hand. She had to laugh in order not to cry. He had a systematic way of choosing the gifts he opened, by similar size and shape, and he soon must have thought he was only getting clothes. Even so, each outfit thrilled him. Eddie intervened, finally, and handed Madeline a gift from Bindi. She recognized his wrapping handiwork from the monkey. And he’d written Mama Maddy on top of the wrapping paper in black marker. It looked like an oversize square envelope, and inside there was a piece of construction paper that had been folded in half twice. A drawing of three lions perched on the edge of an island, looking out. It was remarkable how he’d captured their anxiety and how they seemed to be looking at Madeline across the water, bidding her to come.
“There’s a story that goes with it. I didn’t have time to finish it.”
“This is wonderful, Bindi,” she said and passed it to her brother. “Isn’t that good?”
“It’s very good,” he said. “Well done. Can I open mine?”
Bindi nodded enthusiastically. He took as much pleasure, it seemed, in watching others open the gifts he had given them as he did in tearing through the mountain of gifts he received.
“This is really cool. Look, Maddy.” She took the drawing Eddie handed her and saw that Bindi once again made the viewer an active participant in the picture, which this time depicted a brown bear seated on a bench and staring out at a rooster in the foreground and thus at the beholder as well. They were technically uncomplicated, but there was beauty in that, too. “Pretty good, don’t you think, sis? Looks like we’ve got another artist in the family.” She said it was excellent and handed the drawing back. “Why don’t you open that one just there?” she prompted Bindi.
Eddie moved closer to Madeline on the sofa, not quite whispering as he inquired after their mother and Jack. Had she at least invited them? She shook her head.
“Do they know?”
“Not yet. I’m not sure what to do.”
“Well, you have to tell her,” he said.
“Have you spoken to her recently? I called before my trip and something wasn’t right. She sounded off.”
“Drunk?” he suggested.
“Maybe, but not only. It’s that man, I’m sure of it. I’ve never trusted him, and now they’re so far away.”
“Palm Desert? It’s not so far,” he said, as if Madeline were making excuses.
“So you’ve gone recently?”
“No. I haven’t.” He was guilty, too. She could hear it. The sad part is that Madeline knew their mother might love this, all of them sitting around together. Perhaps her mother had finally moved past whatever heartbreak had made it so impossible for her to show her love when they were young. Bindi was trying to determine what he was looking at, what the image on the big box represented. “Maybe we could all go over together.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t want to think about it now. No one was going to spoil this day. In the same hushed tone, she said, “He doesn’t know what it is. Tell him.”
“That there is a Sega Genesis, which is a video-game console you can connect to your TV.”
Bindi was now unwrapping the smaller gift that had been taped on top of the box. It was a video game to accompany the console: Sonic the Hedgehog.
“What’s a . . .” He hesitated. “Hedgehog?”
“It’s a small animal, about this big.” Eddie held up his hands to show the size. “It’s covered in—what?” He looked at Madeline, and she shrugged. “Like quills. Do you know what a porcupine is?”
“Yes!” Bindi answered, excited that he knew it.
“Well, it’s like a miniature porcupine with little spiky things instead of hair.” He turned to Madeline again. She could only think of comparing it to a mole or groundhog, which didn’t seem particularly helpful. She shook her head and shrugged again.
“Does it look like this?” Bindi showed them both the video-game cover.
“No, nothing like that,” Eddie said, then asked Madeline, “Where’s your encyclopedia?”
“I don’t have one,” she said, almost defensively. “You’re the nerd.”
“I love encyclopedias,” Bindi chimed in. “There was a set at my school. In the library. They didn’t allow us to borrow them, but I could look at lunchtime or before school. Sometimes I went during recess if I thought of a question.”
Eddie put his hand out and Bindi stared at it.
“Give me five.”
Bindi tapped Eddie’s hand with his fingers. Madeline laughed.
“Bindi, when your uncle graduated from high school, unlike the other kids, who wanted cars and who knows what else, he asked for—what was it?”
“The World Book Encyclopedia set, of course. I still use it all the time. I used it yesterday, in fact.”
“Ah, yes. The World Book Encyclopedia. That’s what your uncle wanted for his high school graduation!”
“And you got it for me.”
“That I did.”
“When’s your birthday, Bindi?” asked Edward.
“January 29, 1985.”
“Well, then, you might just be in luck.”
Madeline looked around the living room, at the carefully arranged stacks of architecture and design books, the vases, and the small pieces of sculpture that decorated her bookcase. She’d designed it herself, knowing exactly what would go where. She couldn’t imagine an unwieldy encyclopedia set lining one of the shelves. No, it would have to go in Bindi’s room. And for the first time in weeks, since Barcelona, as a matter of fact, the thought of returning to work truly took hold. But she had the catalogs of Spanish tiles to inspire her and the patternwork of the fabrics she’d bought in India. She was already imagining turning select motifs into stencils she would use to decorate some of the walls and the yoga studio by the pool. Bindi pulled a Rubik’s Cube from his stocking. He seemed intrigued, spinning it around in his hand. Work would be waiting for her tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. But so would he. She would figure it out and catch up on both somehow. She wasn’t alone. Everything was about to be different, and different would be good.