DECEMBER 24, 1997
BROADMOOR
I was trying to wrap the lights around our Christmas tree. I had grown in the past year and I could finally look down on the top of the fake tree that usually lived in a box under the couch.
Mom was in the kitchen flipping through a tattered copy of River Road Recipes. “How can they not have a recipe for brandy milk punch in here? If there’s one thing I’m betting the Junior League knows, it is alcohol and parties, and it seems to me that brandy milk punch is the quintessential combination of the two.”
Ida kept pouncing on one end of the strand of lights and then dashing away with it in her teeth, a movement that threatened to knock over the tree every time. “Mom, I need help. Can you grab Ida?”
“Ah, here it is,” she said. “Nutmeg? Who the fuck has nutmeg lying around?” I could hear cabinets opening and shutting and the sound of a stopper pulled from a bottle.
“It’s just us, who cares? Come help me with this tree.”
“We want to be festive,” she called. “It’s the night of our very own mother-daughter Jewish Christmas.”
“We don’t even do anything,” I mumbled.
“But we do nothing with style,” she insisted. She was wearing a blue-and-white caftan that she called her Hanukkah robes even though it was covered in Chinese dragons. She came in and handed me a teacup. “Cheers. Now, where’s that cassette?” she asked, riffling through a big milk crate where she kept all her tapes.
I gave up on the tree and curled up on the couch drinking the sweet milky concoction. Fifteen-years-olds could drink in Europe, she always said when anyone asked. And Rosie’s the most mature person in this house. I wasn’t going to argue.
She found what she was looking for and soon Elvis was crooning carols from our boom box. “‘Blue Christmas,’ otherwise known as Hanukkah,” she laughed. She did this every year in a series of rituals that kind of drove me crazy. “Oh come on, sweetie,” she said when I groaned. “This is our thing.”
“I would rather just get a bunch of presents.”
“Presence is presents. Someday you will look back on this and think what a wonderful unmaterialistic holiday of togetherness I invented. Anyway, you know I have to work tomorrow. And now, tarot!” She pulled the deck from her pocket and sat next to me on the couch. Her long silky sleeves kept getting in the way as she tried to lay out the cards. She had to keep reaching up toward the ceiling to puddle the sleeves around her armpits before they slid back down again. She took a big sip from her own teacup and set it on the floor next to us. “Okay, this frowning lady here is the sullen teen who can’t wait to get out of the house and start paying all her own bills for some reason.” She flipped another card. “And this—” she looked at it “—um, is the upside-down donkey.” Making up tarot was one of my mother’s favorite jokes.
“Which means the tarot reader is an ass,” I giggled. The punch was very strong but went down very easy, and I started to feel festive in spite of myself.
“For that, you can be the one to rewind the tape.”
I did and after a brief whir, “Blue Christmas” started over again. It wasn’t such a bad song. Even if she did make us listen to it all night practically. “Come back and let me finish your fortune,” she said, wrapping her fingers around the teacup before setting it down by her feet again. “I think this next card means you’re going to marry a sailor in the next year. Either that or maybe just go for a swim?”
This and Mardi Gras were our best nights together. Mardi Gras day we always did our own thing. I went off with Gaby, begging rides from her sister to the parades and getting drunk on beers bought by older guys. Who knew where my mom went, likely doing something similar. But then we’d meet again at night on this couch, both drunk and tired out from the sun and the excitement. We’d put on our pajamas and watch the meeting of the courts on TV, Ida snoring belly up between us, the procession of debutantes bowing and curtsying on-screen as the night drew in and the city fell silent around us.
“Mom, Ida’s drinking your punch,” I yelled.
She leaned over and shooed the dog away from her teacup. “I don’t blame you, girl, it’s pretty delicious.”
“Oh my God, Mom, is she going to be okay? Dogs aren’t supposed to have alcohol.”
I rushed to pick her up, but Ida just looked at me, tilting her head curiously and blinking. “She’ll be fine. I knew a dog once that used to drink beer all the time.” She went to refill her teacup, robe fluttering behind her.
“You never take anything seriously,” I yelled after her, really angry.
I set Ida back down and watched her, worried. After a few minutes she started to lean over a little and then caught herself and straightened up. Then she did it again. Then she yawned, making a little squeak and showing me the tender bridge of her palate, and then curled up and went to sleep. I was terrified that she might stop breathing, so I sat down and held her in my lap. She rolled onto her back, pink loins exposed, and fell into a deep, snuffling sleep, her head draped upside down over my arm. But at least I could see her ribs expand with each breath, and I knew she was alive. I carried her into my room and lay on my bed, curling up around her, and watched her tiny little snout hairs flutter with each exhale.
“What, we’re done in here?” my mom called, disappointed. I didn’t answer and pressed my cheek against the velvet curve of Ida’s head, one ear transparent in the lamplight. A few minutes later our phone rang, and I knew she would be going out soon or some man would be coming over to laugh too much at her bad jokes, brandy milk punch dripping from a dumb moustache, bedroom doors closing with a hard bang.
I slid Ida down against my side so I could reach my bookcase. It was a night for All Quiet on the Western Front. The cover was missing, dog-eared, crunchy from being dropped in the bathtub, but it didn’t matter. I started at the beginning like I always did but quickly flipped ahead. Hot, consoling tears began to drip down my cheeks. It could have been the punch, I guess. Ida sneezed hard in her sleep and a fine spray of droplets scattered across the page.