“I have a secret,” my mother said, voice soft, confessional. “Do you want to know?”
I felt something dig into my back, hard and sharp.
A fingernail?
A claw?
The tip of a blade?
I imagined it: something sharp and shiny about to be driven in at the soft place between my ribs, where it would be pushed all the way down to my heart and split it in two.
The pressure intensified, as did the stabbing pain. I felt her tracing a design: not a letter this time, but a circle, a spiral that went on and on, being etched right into my skin. Something with no beginning. No end.
I bit my lip to keep from crying out, and my eyes flew open.
“Mama, please,” I whimpered.
Please stop. Please go away.
That’s when I saw it: the shadow cast on the wall by my mother, backlit by the filtered moonlight coming in from the window.
Only this was not my mother.
Not anymore.
My scream seemed to fill the whole room, the whole house, the whole universe.
I reached under my pillow and grabbed the knife.
ONE
THE ANGEL WAS INa thousand tiny shards.
It had slipped from my hand and shattered before I even realized what had happened.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
I was precariously balanced at the very top of the stepladder in the corner of the living room, where I’d been trying to hang it up. The clear glass angel hovered there in the shadows every year at Christmastime, watching over us as we trimmed the tree, sipped eggnog, sat through sappy Christmas movies, then oohed and squealed as presents were opened on Christmas Day; a strange, emotionless observer, a passive spy.
The truth was, I kind of hated the angel. I thought she was ugly (her eyes were bulbous, insect-like) and more than a little bit creepy.
But I hadn’t meant to smash her.
“Ali? Hon? You okay?” Mark called from upstairs.
“Fine,” I chirped back, climbing down from the ladder and picking up the largest surviving piece: the angel’s head. Her large pupilless eyes stared at me accusingly:How could you do this to me?
Christmas music played from the holiday classics music channel on the television—at the moment, it was a saccharine-sweet version of “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” Mark insisted on the music, saying it helped set the mood.
He wanted everything to be perfect when the girls got home from school: the boxes of ornaments out, the tree ready to decorate, the housesmelling of gingerbread cookies, Christmas music playing. He’d even put a festive red Christmas ribbon on the poor dog.
This was the day Mark most looked forward to all year—Decorating Day. He even took December first off from work for it, as if it were an actual holiday. I bucked up and tried not to spoil it for him. Really, I did.
“Tradition,” Mark said again and again, telling me how important it was for the girls, that we were creating memories that would last their lifetimes, traditions that would be passed down to their children and their children’s children.
Moxie, our six-year-old black Lab, lay on her bed in the corner of the living room looking somewhat dejected in her big red bow. She had lifted her head at the sound of the angel crashing to the floor, then, seeing all was well, gave a sigh and settled back down.
“Let It Snow!” turned into “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” and I couldn’t help myself—I snatched up the remote and turned off the TV.
