Austen:I learned from the best.
Me:Love you.
Austen:I love you, too.
Christmas Day arrived gray and cold.
Dad and I exchanged gifts with the enthusiasm of a hockey line change—him to me: new gloves, top of the line, already broken in the way I liked.Me to him: a frame for the photo from my first varsity start, something I’d found in a box in my closet and figured he’d want displayed.
“Good gloves,” I said.
“Good frame,” he said.
We ate ham in front of the TV, watching an NHL game neither of us cared about.The house was too quiet.Mom had been gone since I was fourteen—not dead, just relocated, remarried, living in Arizona with a man who sold insurance and didn’t understand hockey.She’d sent a card.I hadn’t opened it.And dad was currently single after going through a string of wives.
At two p.m., I escaped to my room and called Austen.
“Merry Christmas,” I said when he answered.
“Merry Christmas.”He was wearing a sweater I didn’t recognize—chunky knit, forest green, probably borrowed from Maya’s dad.“The Chens are doing a puzzle.A one-thousand-piece rendering of the Milky Way.I have been assigned the edge pieces.”
“Sounds intense.”
“It requires focus.”He shifted the phone, and I glimpsed the living room behind him—fireplace, tree, people moving in the background.“How’s New Jersey?”
“Quiet.Dad gave me gloves.”
“That’s… practical.”
“It’s his way.”I leaned against the headboard.“I got you something.It’s back at the dorm.I’ll give it to you when we get back.”
“You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to.”I’d found it at a used bookstore in town—a first edition of some math text he’d mentioned once, spine cracked but intact.Probably too sentimental.I didn’t care.
“I have something for you as well,” he said.“Also, at the dorm.It’s not… significant.Just something I saw.”
“I’m sure it’s perfect.”
“You haven’t seen it yet.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He was quiet for a moment.Through the phone, I heard laughter—the Chens, probably, celebrating something puzzle-related.Austen glanced toward the sound, then back at the screen.
“I wish you were here,” he said.
“I wish I was there too.”
“Only five more days.”
“Five more days.”
We stayed on the phone for another hour, not talking much, just existing in the same digital space.He worked on edge pieces.I stared at the ceiling.Sometimes presence didn’t require words.I had more fun staring at the Chen’s ceiling than I had since getting back home.
New Year’s Eve, Dad tried.
He bought sparkling cider and made his famous seven-layer dip and put on the countdown coverage like we were a normal family who did normal things.We sat on opposite ends of the couch, watching the ball drop in Times Square, surrounded by the ghosts of holidays that had gone differently.
