In those days leading up to Christmas, all our senses were honed to a sharp point, and that point was aimed at Dad. He was always singing, always talking, always whistling. His energy filled up the house. One morning he announced he was running for city council so he could throw out the morons running the city. The next morning he decided to run for the park board. That same day he announced we should move to the north shore of Lake Superior because of climate change. “We’ll need sources of fresh water.” Sometimes I’d find him staring off at something, a spot on the table, a squirrel outside in the snow. His mind was so scattered, moving so fast, he couldn’t remember what he’d intended to do.
I’d wave my hands in front of his face. “Can you land soon, Dad?”
“Beam me home, Spock.” He grinned.
Mom would pretend to keep doing whatever she was doing, cleaning out the recycling bin or unloading dishes, but she was always watching Dad, registering his moods.
One night, after dinner, I caught her counting his pills, making sure he was taking his medication to level his mood, and when I came into the kitchen, she stuck the pill bottle in the drawer. “He’s not taking them.”
Three days later, when Ali arrived home from college, she immediately argued with Dad over the filthy turtleneck he’d been wearing. Her voice carried through the house. “I’ll wash it for you. Just take it off and put on something else. It’s gross.”
She burst into my room five minutes later. “Please tell me this just started, and it hasn’t been going on for weeks—”
“Not weeks.”
Ali grabbed my hand and led me to our parents’ bedroom, where Mom was ironing a red tablecloth and napkins.
“I’m amazed that you can live with him,” she said.
“Don’t talk about your father that way,” Mom said, then turned back to her ironing.
“He’s talking and singing nonstop. And he looks disheveled. Since when did he start wearing that old turtleneck?” Ali shook her head at Mom. “Make him see the doctor.”
Mom unplugged the iron and faced Ali. “You don’t think I’ve tried?”
“He shouldn’t have a choice.” Ali turned and headed toward the door.
I went over and gave Mom a hug. She hugged me back and wouldn’t let go. “Mom?” I said. “Ali’s waiting for me to watch a movie.”
I’d expected to spend a lot of time with Ali, but she had lots to do before she left for China—a physical exam, a dentist’s appointment, and supplies to buy, including a new suitcase. Evenings, she had invitations to parties from her old high school friends. As the days passed, it seemed like she was almost never home.
I felt more restless. Sonja had left on Friday for Florida, and now the days moved slowly. I spent a good deal of time reading on my bed. Not good books, either. Not books that Sonja would’ve read. I’d bought People and Teen Vogue. I read articles on skin care and weight control and how to pick the right boyfriend. I took the test twice, thinking of Gravy. I lay there with the magazine propped on my stomach. I listened to my mom and Ali laughing in the kitchen as they baked Christmas cookies. “Will? Fran?” they called. “We’re ready to decorate. Want to help?”
I missed Sonja, but I knew she wasn’t missing me. She’d already sent me two emails about the lifeguard at her grandmother’s country club. I was certain she’d approached him with two sandwiches and two bottles of water. Days were short now, four in the afternoon and the sky had already turned dark. I stared out my window. At least it was snowing, and Dad and I planned to ski after dark.
When the streetlights came on, I found him napping in his easy chair, his journal perched on his lap. As I nudged him, he moved and the journal slipped and fell open on the floor. When I picked it up, I saw the pages were blank—he hadn’t written anything in weeks. That’s when I saw it—Sonja’s card tucked between the pages, a reindeer with antlers, and ornaments hanging off the antlers with the faces of my family pasted on them, including a photo of Sonja. I opened the card and read: Dear William, thank you for giving me Pablo Neruda’s book. I find his voice very inspirational, but not as inspirational as yours. Have a great holiday. Sonja with a J.
I froze—why hadn’t he mentioned giving her the book?
As Dad blinked his eyes open, I shut the journal and pretended not to have seen the card. “Want to go skiing now, before the snow gets too deep?” he asked, pushing himself off the chair.
As we left the house, carrying our skis on our shoulders to the lake, Gravy and my brother drove up the driveway and parked. When Gravy opened the passenger door, I belted out, “Howdy, Gravy!”
You have to know this: I have never, ever said howdy to anyone. Never once in my whole life. I don’t know why I said it, but I felt as if Sonja’s voice had hijacked my vocal cords. Howdy was something she might say, if she were trying to rouse a laugh.
“Trying too hard compromises your delivery, Fran.” Will slammed the car door. “The key to being funny? Not trying.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Maybe you should take a lesson from Sonja. Her delivery’s great.”
“Thanks for the card,” Gravy said, grinning.
“What card?”
He reached into his car and pulled it out, a photo of a priest chasing two nuns on ice-skates. ’Tis the season for miracles. Underneath, Sonja had signed my name alongside hers. Happy Holidays, Frances and Sonja. Lifting his gaze, he chuckled. “Guess you didn’t know about it.”
“I forgot,” I uttered stupidly, and turning abruptly, hurrying to catch up with Dad.
The moon was bright. Our Christmas Eve ritual was to ski from Bde Maka Ska, across Lake of the Isles, through the canals to Cedar Lake. Dad and I cut new tracks through the fresh snow. Sometimes we heard the ice crack underneath, a strange burping sound that left me wondering if the ice was frozen through. I was comforted by the ice huts lit by lanterns in the distance. Dad carried a backpack with a thermos of hot chocolate and an assortment of Christmas cookies, and when we reached the island, we found a log along the edge. We sat looking at the huge mansions lit with Christmas lights along Lake of the Isles. Farther away, at the north end of the lake, we could see ice skaters on the lighted rink.
Dad unpacked Mom’s cookies. Mom insisted on using both Christmas and Hanukkah cookie cutters, so both family histories were represented. Dad held up a cookie that looked like a boat. “Is this Christmas or Hanukkah?”
“That’s the menorah, but the candles always break off, so it’s just the base of the menorah.”
He stared at the cookie without taking a bite. “Your mother tries too hard.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant his statement as a compliment or a criticism. He wasn’t smiling. He lifted his gaze, staring off at the skating rink in the distance, his face lit by the moon, his bristled cheeks frosted. “The pills dull everything. If I take the medication, I stop writing. Music is my life.” He paused, the hot cocoa steaming in his hands. “Your mother doesn’t understand. Just because she gave up her creativity, doesn’t mean I should. I don’t want to feel dead inside.”
I felt torn between trying to make Dad feel understood and backing up Mom. I knew how much she did to hold our family together, and I wasn’t sure Dad could see that. I kept hearing Ali’s voice in my head. You need to support her. He’s getting worse.
“I think she’s just trying to help you, Dad.”
He fell silent for a moment, shaking his head before adding, “Christ, you too?” as if I’d betrayed him. “All of you pathologize happiness.” He poured his hot chocolate onto the ice. “Honestly? I think the only one who understands me is Sonja.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t believe Dad said that. I stood up on my skis, adjusted my pole straps, and began skiing across the lake toward home.
“Franny, wait up. I didn’t mean anything,” my father called from behind me.
I kept going, ice cracking all around me as I stayed close to shore through the canals. Let it swallow me up. That would show him.
When I arrived home, I ran a hot bath.
My brother knocked on the door. “Is Ms. Howdy ever coming out?”
I stared at the creases of my stomach. My mind circled howdy, replacing it with hello, hi, how are you, the sorts of words that come naturally to a person who does not try so hard. Howdy. It seemed like a symbol of my whole life—the difference between Sonja and me. Sonja’s howdy made people laugh. My howdy exposed me.
I lay in the steaming water listening to As it Happens on Public Radio. It helped to hear about all the other catastrophes around the world, especially the storms hitting Florida. Sometimes it helped to feel the smallness of my own life. None of this mattered. Not howdy. Not a poetry book given to Sonja. Not a Christmas card sent without my permission to Gravy. None of it mattered compared to other, much bigger tragedies.
Then I crawled into bed and lay awake.
Mom came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. “It’s only nine-thirty. Your sister and I are playing Scrabble. Want to join us?”
“No.”
But I did. I did want to join them. I wanted my mother and sister to come up and rouse me out of bed. I wanted them to do what they used to do when I was younger, tickle and pull, until I joined whatever they were doing.
“You sure?” She hesitated at the door.
“Yes.”
She closed the door, and my room was dark.
I cried then. I cried because I felt too much inside. I felt Dad’s shifting moods and Mom’s worries. I felt my sister’s independence. I felt the truth of my brother’s jokes, and I felt that Sonja’s personality was taking over my own personality so that there was nothing inside me that was my own. I felt empty. And because I was empty, no one knew me. What was there to know? I thought about loneliness, too—how you can be part of a family and have a best friend and still feel alone. I thought how strange it was that I could miss Sonja and still be glad she was gone.