Chương 14
Daniel looked down.
Sarah continued.
“And I’ll see you tomorrow at one.”
“Twelve fifty-five.”
“One.”
“Twelve fifty-five.”
Daniel said, “We can do twelve fifty-five.”
“Do not encourage him.”
Leo grinned.
Sarah hugged him.
This time he did not go stiff first.
When she let go, he put on his coat.
Daniel picked up the telescope.
“Ready?”
Leo opened the door.
Cold air entered the hall.
He stepped outside, then stopped.
“Wait.”
He ran back toward the tree.
Sarah watched him crouch near the branches.
There were fewer gifts than the previous year.
Deliberately.
Three for Leo.
Two for Sarah.
One for Cooper.
A few from grandparents.
Leo picked up a small package with a white tag.
He returned and handed it to her.
“What’s this?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Then why give it to me now?”
“So I don’t forget where it is.”
She smiled.
“Okay.”
He ran outside again.
Sarah stood in the doorway while Daniel put the telescope in the trunk.
Leo climbed into the passenger side.
Then he got out again.
Daniel looked at him.
“What now?”
Leo walked back toward Sarah.
“I forgot something.”
“What?”
He hugged her once more.
Fast.
Hard.
Then he ran to the car before she could answer.
Sarah stayed on the porch.
Daniel shut the trunk.
He looked at her across the roof of the car.
“Merry Christmas.”
She swallowed.
“Merry Christmas.”
He got in.
The car backed down the driveway.
Leo rolled down the window despite the cold.
“Tomorrow! Twelve fifty-five!”
Sarah laughed.
“One!”
The car turned onto the street.
The taillights disappeared.
Sarah remained outside for another minute.
Snow from two days earlier had hardened along the edge of the lawn. Somewhere down the block a child shouted. A garage door opened. The neighbors across the street had put an inflatable reindeer in their yard, and its motor wheezed every few seconds as the animal leaned sideways and corrected itself.
Nothing about the evening looked cinematic.
No music.
No perfect closure.
Sarah went inside.
The house was quiet.
She fed Cooper.
She heated leftover soup.
She watched half an episode of a show she did not particularly like.
At nine fourteen Daniel sent a photograph.
Leo stood beside the assembled telescope in Daniel’s living room.
The tripod was crooked.
Leo held a screwdriver.
Daniel’s message read:
He says my engineering is embarrassing.
Sarah replied:
He’s right.
At nine twenty:
Leo says tell you he found Mars.
She wrote:
Tell him Mars is not visible tonight from there.
Three dots appeared.
Then:
He says you are ruining Christmas.
Sarah laughed alone in the kitchen.
At twelve fifty-two the next afternoon, Daniel’s car pulled into the driveway.
Sarah checked the clock.
Of course.
Leo came through the front door carrying the small black telescope bag over one shoulder.
“Merry Christmas!”
“Merry Christmas.”
He put the bag beside the stairs.
Daniel entered behind him carrying a pie from a bakery.
“I was told not to bring anything,” Sarah said.
“I didn’t bring anything. The bakery did.”
She rolled her eyes.
Leo ran to the tree.
The three of them ate lunch.
There were awkward moments.
Daniel reached automatically for the cabinet where the glasses used to be before Sarah moved them.
Sarah asked about his mother and accidentally said “our mother” before correcting herself.
Leo dropped cranberry sauce on his shirt.
Cooper barked at the delivery driver next door.
At one point Sarah and Daniel disagreed about whether Leo could stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Leo said, “Not in front of me.”
Both stopped.
He looked pleased.
After lunch, they sat near the tree.
Leo handed Sarah the package he had almost forgotten the night before.
“Open it.”
She did.
Inside was a small wooden picture frame.
Not professionally made.
The corners were uneven.
Glue showed along one edge.
Inside was a photograph.
The beach picture.
The duplicate Leo had found the day Daniel moved out.
Sarah stared at it.
Then she noticed something written in black marker along the bottom of the frame.
NOT THE ONLY KIND OF FAMILY.
Her throat tightened.
Daniel leaned forward.
“Did you make that?”
“In art club.”
Sarah looked at Leo.
“Where did you get the picture?”
“I printed another one.”
Daniel smiled.
“You’re apparently keeping the photo-printing industry alive.”
Leo ignored him.
Sarah ran her thumb over the uneven wood.
“It’s beautiful.”
“The glue is bad.”
“The glue is terrible.”
“Yeah.”
She laughed.
Leo sat on the rug.
Daniel picked up one of the wrapped presents.
“Is this mine?”
“No,” Leo said.
“It says Dad.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s yours.”
Daniel frowned.
“Who else is Dad?”
Leo looked at Sarah.
“Could be anybody.”
Sarah laughed.
Daniel opened it.
Socks.
He held them up.
“Wow.”
“You need them at both houses.”
Daniel looked at Leo.
“That is aggressively practical.”
“I learned from Mom.”
Sarah raised a hand.
“True.”
Leo opened his gifts.
A model submarine from Sarah.
A soccer rebounder from Daniel.
A book from both of them.
No mountain.
No attempt to cover fear with ribbon.
At two thirty Daniel stood to leave.
Leo looked toward the telescope bag.
“Can I keep that here until Friday?”
Daniel nodded.
“Of course.”
Sarah glanced at him.
The telescope had moved.
Nobody had broken.
Leo carried it upstairs.
When he returned, he stood between his parents.
For one second Sarah saw the drawing from April.
Two houses.
A child in the middle.
But he was not standing there because there was nowhere else to fit him.
He was simply standing.
Daniel put on his coat.
“I’ll pick you up Friday after lunch.”
“Two?”
“Two.”
“Two exactly?”
“Two-ish.”
Leo groaned.
Sarah smiled.
Daniel opened the door.
Then Leo asked, “Dad?”
Daniel turned.
“Yeah?”
“Next Christmas is Mom’s morning, right?”
“Yes.”
“And yours after?”
“Yeah.”
Leo nodded.
“So I know where the presents go.”
Sarah felt something move through her that was grief and relief and guilt and love, none of them canceling the others.
Daniel looked at her.
She looked back.
No secret signal.
No pretense.
Just two adults who had finally stopped asking their son to live inside what they were afraid to say.
Leo bent to scratch Cooper behind the ears.
Then he glanced at the white gift tags scattered beneath the tree and said, almost absently, “I’ll probably just leave some stuff at both houses anyway.”
Daniel smiled.
“That works too.”
May you like
Leo shrugged as if the answer had been obvious all along.
Then he went upstairs to put seven rocks into a small cardboard box, deciding which ones would stay and which ones would travel with him Friday, while downstairs his mother washed three lunch plates, his father scraped ice from his windshield, and the house held exactly what remained of them—nothing hidden, nothing whole in the old way, and nothing requiring an eight-year-old boy to pretend he did not know.
