He doesn’t move from where he’s flopped: one pant leg rolled halfway up his calf, ice packs wrapped around his knee and two on his ankle, leaned against the back of the couch, head tilted back over the cushion. The sleeves of his plaid flannel shirt are pushed up and he’s got something black and long-sleeved on underneath it, his hat on the couch next to him, melted snow soaking into the blue fabric.
I must be exhausted from the last couple days, because I suddenly find it appealing in a way I don’t find Gideon appealing. There’s something insouciant in the way he’s draped on the couch, like a mountain lion relaxing at the top of the food chain. Gideon’s not particularly tall—five ten, maybe five eleven?—but looking at him now, I realize he’ssolid, wide-shouldered and powerful in a way that feels impolite to think about.
So, I don’t.
“Why are you here on Christmas?” I ask, suddenly loud in the quiet cabin, trading one awkward thought for another.
“Ruffed grouse census,” he tells the ceiling, then swallows. “You?”
“I told you, Chloe Barnes needed company,” I say.
Gideon lifts his head just enough to give me a look, and I shrug, like his answer was any better of an explanation.
“Lucia and Frank went on a cruise to Mexico because, and I quote,fuck this performative capitalist nightmare, see you in January,” I say. “And my dad just started a new job and doesn’t have much time off, so we figured it made more sense for me to visit in the spring, when I wouldn’t be battling holiday traffic.”
“Ah,” Gideon says, and goes quiet again.
I stretch my legs out, cross my ankles and arms, and frown at him, not that he sees it because he’s either asleep or staring at the ceiling. On Christmas. In an off-grid cabin that can’t be more than five hundred square feet, in the middle of nowhere, with a busted ankle.
I don’t really mind missing Christmas. To be honest, it’s kind of nice to skip Christmas once in a while—I don’t have to think about presents, or a tree, or decorating, or hosting people, or cleaning up afterward, or whether I’m making the season magical enough or whatever. It can really be a wholething.
But Gideon’s family was always a big Christmas family, at least when I still lived here. The whole month of December was usually Christmas Month: kids making and putting up decorations, Gideon having to go to one church social event after another, repairing whichever precious old ornament had broken this year. A flurry of costumes for the nativity play his church did every year, mending white robes and gluing together tattered, ancient angel wings. I never did find out which part he played.
I wonder if that still happens. Gideon’s youngest siblings are probably in their late teens by now, so I doubt they’re the baby Jesus, but he’s got tons of nieces and nephews. I wonder if he still glues together angel wings and ceramic mangers.
I wonder if they still get a wild Christmas tree.
Of everything Gideon’s family did for the holidays, that’s what I remember the best because it was what I liked the most: the weekend after Thanksgiving, Gideon, Matthew, and their dad would go into the woods and cut down a Christmas tree, and sometimes I got to come, too, as did his other siblings when they were old enough: Elliott the last few years I lived here, Zach the final time.
I have no idea why they let me come. None of Gideon’s sisters ever did, though maybe that’s because they were too young; of the twelve kids, the eldest four were all boys. But I loved tromping through the woods with axes and handsaws, debating the merits of every fir tree we saw and finding the worthiest. The trees we got were never as pretty as the ones you could buy at Kroger or the Christmas tree lot down Old Lawyers Road—a little gangly and a little patchy and never quite right—but I always liked them better anyway.
Getting the tree always felt like an old pagan ritual, wild and out of place among the strictures and scriptures of Gideon’s house. Even after they tamed the tree with lights and popcorn garlands and thrice-repaired ornaments, it still felt wild. Like an old god in their midst, bestowing the ancient blessings, a little dangerous and a little out of control. His parents would’ve hated that I thought that.
“Is it my fault you’re here and not chopping down a Christmas tree?” I ask after a long silence.
“No,” he says.
“So, it was your plan to be in an off-grid cabin counting grice or whatever during the biggest holiday of the year?” I prod.
“Grouse, and yes,” he says.
I let it be silent for a minute, just in case he’d like to add something.
“Are you being serious right now?” I ask when it becomes apparent he wouldn’t.
“Yes,” he says, a little more forcefully than I think is warranted.
“Your family’s not doing anything?” I say, casually prodding. It gets a big sigh from Gideon, who doesn’t move his head but does scrub his hands over his face.
“They’re doing the usual and I elected not to attend this year,” he says. “Reid was very excited to host his first Friendsmas at our place, so I decided to get out of there so they could have the place to themselves, and also so no one would show up and guilt trip me or give me big sad eyes about coming to Christmas.”
“Oh,” I say, absorbing the layers of information. Reid must be the younger brother who lives with him who Lucia has mentioned once or twice; I don’t think he was born yet when we moved away.
“But that got canceled for obvious reasons and he spent Christmas under five blankets, watching Muppet Christmas Carol on his laptop and probably eating chips and marshmallows for Christmas dinner,” he goes on, sounding mildly annoyed. “Hopefully he didn’t give Dolly any marshmallows.”
“Dolly’s an animal?” I hazard.
Gideon moves for the first time in several minutes, sitting up to pull his phone from his pocket and leaning forward to show me his lock screen. There’s a faint smile on his face and some sort of creature on his phone.
