‘Should we watch the movie after breakfast, or start with the puzzle and the gifts?’ Olivia asks.
‘I’d like to get a photo of everyone in their new PJs,’ Elsie says, opening the bag to start handing them out.
She hands Olivia matching sets for her and Maeve – pink with red candy canes and bows. Luke and Dad’s bundles are also matching, a Christmas red and green plaid with button-up tops and shorts. Mine are the last to come out of the bag, and I laugh when I see they are covered in cartoon images of the Grinch. If it is a jab at my lack of holiday spirit, I choose not to receive it. Tension cannot take hold without my participation, and anyway, they are quite cute. I thank Mum and take the gift.
‘You were obsessed with that movie,’ Olivia says, quick to smooth the bumps of the gesture with her gentle voice. ‘I swear we must have watched it a hundred times over the years.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ Luke says, kissing her on the cheek.
‘Maybe we could video-call with Laura when we’re all dressed – she might like to see what Christmas in the Byrne house is like,’ she replies.
Luke’s grin loses brightness, and he nods in a noncommittal way. Elsie might be probing with that suggestion, after what she heard yesterday, or she might be trying to pretend it never happened. Luke can decide how he wants to perceive it; I choose not to cultivate agitation on his behalf. We reconvene after showers and fry-ups, ready to win Christmas Eve with our show of festive togetherness. There is not a dry eye in the room by the time the movie is finished, and it hits me harder than ever. Our lives are interconnected, each of us precious, worthy, part of a bigger story, even if we are not aware of what that is at the time. Perhaps I am George on that bridge. Dad places his hand on my shoulder over the back of the couch, bringing me back my self-awareness. My sobbing is drawing uncomfortable looks, I soon realise, dissolving the sense of collective emotion I had felt part of for a moment. I have again done too much, taken things too far. Maeve is watching me with curiosity, rather than discomfort, at least.
‘Puzzles and present time, I’d say,’ Dad announces, and we move on quickly to the next activity.
Since we were children, we have been allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve, something that held more personal significance when my meticulously planned list was the highlight of my year. Now, I do not care so much for gifts, or the expectation of proper receivership of said gifts, but it is nice to carry on some traditions and this one is pleasant to witness, perhaps even more so now I do not have a stake in the outcome. Elsie selects the gifts that everyone will open, a new and authoritarian approach to the ritual that diminishes the excitement somewhat, but it is okay, really. Understandable, easy. She wants to enjoy the enjoyment of her family as they open the gifts she has selected for them, whereas on Christmas morning she is often too busy in the kitchen to do much else. Luke is delighted with his leather valet tray, a luxury organiser for his watch, phone, headphones, and keys. We pass it around, all smelling to confirm the leather is sumptuous and well finished. Dad is just as thrilled with his new gardening gloves and hat, joking that they are too nice to be anywhere near the dirt.
Olivia is gracious as she opens a voucher for a deluxe facial at the local day spa, not mentioning the potential difficulty in using it from her home in London. She exudes genuine joy witnessing Maeve’s delight at the wooden flower garden building set Mum picked so well for her. We all watch on as Mum unpacks it for her on the rug, and Maeve holds up each piece in wonder, marvelling at these never-before-seen delights. Almost two might be the very best age at which one experiences Christmas. Elsie asks Olivia if she can open the gift from her, and Olivia passes her a small rectangular gift, talking fast about how she hopes she likes it, how she struggled to choose between a few different versions, how she kept the receipt so she can change it if she likes. Mum gasps when she sees the new earrings, small gold hoops with a single pearl dangling from each.
‘They’re gorgeous, Olivia. Stunning. I will wear them tomorrow, Grandma will love them,’ she says.
Elsie hands me my gift to round out the morning. I can tell it is a book, they wrap so well, and when I peel back the paper to read the title, about building productive habits, I find my best grin and thank her for her thoughtfulness. Olivia widens her eyes at me from across the room. I flash mine back, and the moment that passes between us is worth a million not-quite-right gifts that may or may not have come with good intentions. We collect the wrapping paper strewn across the floor and move over to the dining table for the next event.
The Christmas puzzle is a custom carried over from Dad’s upbringing; in a household of puzzle-lovers who did not know how to communicate with one another, they found comfort instead in the joint completion of a task. Here Dad assigns everyone a job – he and Luke will sort the edge pieces, while Olivia, Mum and I are to group the inner pieces into colour and picture matches. Maeve is happy to play with the box, packing and unpacking it with her new wooden flowers. There are a thousand pieces to this North Pole scene, and a lot of them are plain white on account of all the snow. We sink into a comfortable silence, working away. Without talking, I find peace again in us all being here, together. It is soft, relaxed, flowing like a song. Perhaps Dad’s family were on to something, after all. Perhaps not talking, working together on a task, is the key. It is not lost on me how immersed we all are in this puzzle, how that might hint at something more shared than unique to my experiences. But nobody wants to have that conversation, so I continue enjoying the quiet.
There are not many memories I have been able to hold on to from the remainder of the summer before I started university. The tape is blank, the images not lost because they were never captured to begin with. Disconnecting from myself, avoiding and dissociating and shutting down meant my brain could not record my experiences in the way it was supposed to, just as a stomach might not properly absorb nutrients if there is a more serious illness at play. It is something I have been trying to figure out with Dr Montague, but she has her work cut out for her so it may take some time to fully comprehend. And she still has not replied to my email, so for now I am on my own, a little lost in the dark.
Here is what I have found:
Fran and I saw each other that Boxing Day. He called over early in the morning, before my parents had woken up. I was lying in bed, trying to devour the shame that had woken up next to me like a warm body, after my run-in with Elsie. His knock at the window caught me by surprise, and it took me a moment to process, to wave for him to come inside.
‘Morning,’ he said, opening the door quietly so as not to disturb the peace.
He could not have known how little peace there was to be found for me in that house, at that time. I had been reminded of how wrong and bad I was, at a fundamental level, and now there was an energetic penalty to pay. It felt as though the version of me whose belly button he had kissed only two days prior, was not real, had never been real. I had tricked him into believing she existed, which only made me worse.
‘Hey, how are you? Did you have a good day?’ I sat up, trying to be right.
‘It was fine, low-key. Ate too much ham. How was yours?’
The question was simple, but finding a reasonable response was beyond my capability. I stared blankly as he came to sit beside me on the bed.
‘Rah? Hey, you okay?’
‘Yeah, sorry, bad sleep. I’m a bit zonked.’
My body tensed as he moved closer, and I suppose he may have sensed some kind of hesitation in my voice. I was not really present or in control of either. My thoughts were a skirmish, the desire to neutralise my badness much stronger than any small voice calling for connection with Fran. Us sleeping together had ruined my family Christmas, and this was not his fault, it was mine. I had to refocus my energy on being good; I had to allocate more of myself to that cause, which left so little of me for anything or anyone else. Shutting everything else down was the only way to be cleansed of the mistakes I continued to make, the only way to stay alive. Refresh, blank slate, nothing to see here. And the tension this caused made me feel as though I was not a human in a body at all. There was some relief in the absence of feeling. To be numb was to rest. And I needed to rest.
‘Do you want me to let you rest? Sorry it’s so early – I thought I’d call around because you’re usually up, but I forgot Christmas can be hectic. You probably need some downtime.’
Fran was speaking fast, panicking, and I struggled to follow along, wishing not for the first time that real life came with subtitles. I did not want him to feel all of that. I wanted for him to be numb; he deserved a rest, too. But my mind could not convert those thoughts to words, and so I nodded, letting him remove himself because that was the easier option, because I could not do the work required for anything more.
‘I’ll call you later,’ I said, hazy, as he watched me slide back under my blankets from the door, cosying back up to the shame that needed its host.
That is all I can recall of that day, so I suppose I did not call him. I suppose I stayed under those covers for the rest of the day, and the rest of the week. On New Year’s Eve, it dawned on me that I should probably reach out, and so I tried again. That night is another fragment, sharp and jagged.
‘Hey, what are you doing tonight? Would love to see you, sorry I’ve been boring this week. Exhausted!’I text him.
‘No probs. Going to the street party to party with the oldies. Want to come?’he replied.
