Perfect Little World(107)

This year, the gift was a customized photo album of the past seven years, showing each child from birth to the present, with their names printed on the glossy covers. Jill and Dr. Grind had worked on the presents for more than a month, Dr. Grind doing most of the work while everyone else slept. Each book was entirely unique, an assortment of the thousands and thousands of photos that every member of the family had taken. It was, Dr. Grind had told the family one day, halfway into the project, like excavating the artifacts of a grand and heretofore unknown civilization. As each child received their gift, they ran over to their parents to show them their bounty. “Merry Christmas!” Jackie shouted, and Dr. Grind, fiddling with the itchy fake beard, gave a resounding “Ho, ho, ho,” and the children all clapped as he exited the room, only to return a few minutes later in his regular clothes, wondering what all the fuss was.

The cookies consumed, the stockings hung with care, each child hugged and kissed by every member of the family, Izzy turned off the lights and returned with Cap to their own house. “It was the night before Christmas,” Cap stated, and Izzy couldn’t tell if he was starting the poem or simply making a very obvious statement. “The last one,” he then said.

“Just the last Christmas at the complex,” Izzy reminded him, and he smiled weakly, allowing her correction, too tired to explain what they both knew he really meant.

A few minutes later, just as they had begun to get ready for bed, someone knocked on the door. Cap ran to answer it and they found Dr. Grind standing there with a large, awkwardly shaped present.

Cap ran back to the coffee table and retrieved the photo album before running back over to Dr. Grind; Cap gave him a hug, holding up the photo album and begging him to look through it with him.

“Is this okay?” Dr. Grind, placing the present next to the sofa, asked Izzy, who nodded at the same time that Cap, still smiling at Dr. Grind, exclaimed, “Sure it is!”

The three of them sat on the couch and flipped through the album, Izzy shocked at how vividly she remembered nearly every image.

“You’re in hardly any of these pictures,” Cap said to Dr. Grind.

“Is that so?” Dr. Grind replied, seeming genuinely surprised by this observation.

“Not enough,” Cap said.

“We’ll remember you anyway,” Izzy told him, and Dr. Grind blushed before, as if by magic, it disappeared from his skin. He would not meet her gaze and instead said, “I have something for you, Cap,” as he awkwardly reached for the present on the floor.

“I don’t have to wait until tomorrow?” he asked, suspicious.

“You can open it now,” Izzy said.

He tore into the wrapping paper and then paused as he observed the black banjo case. “I know what this is going to be,” he said excitedly, and then flipped open the case to see a banjo that seemed both ancient and brand-new at the same time, so perfectly designed that even to Izzy’s untrained eye it seemed more expensive than a car.

“Awesome,” Cap shouted.

“It’s a Gibson Mastertone,” Dr. Grind informed him. “I went to Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, and they assured me that this banjo was worthy of someone of your talent.”

Cap plucked the strings and it sounded like pure silver, the tone so perfect that Izzy felt like it would reverberate for years if allowed to do so.

“It’s mine?” Cap asked.

Dr. Grind nodded.

“Thank you,” Cap said, hugging Dr. Grind as tightly as he could.

“It’s time for bed, sweetie,” Izzy said to Cap, who nodded.

“Can I bring this to bed with me?” he asked, and both Dr. Grind and Izzy nodded their approval.

“Merry Christmas to all,” Cap said, and then he kissed Izzy and went to his room.


Once he was gone, Izzy watched Dr. Grind, still smiling, his gift so well received.

“Do you want a cookie? Coffee?” she asked.

“No thank you,” he said. “I should get back.”

But before he could rise from the sofa, she grabbed him by the arm, as if pulling him underwater, sinking back into the Infinite Family, the one that would soon disappear.

“I love you,” she said.

Here he was, she thought, maybe the last chance that she would have. He was in her house, beloved by her son, so perfect for her. He was about to walk out of this house, back to his own lonely apartment, and she wanted only to hold on to this moment for as long as she possibly could. She wanted only to stretch this moment out into infinity.

“I’m going to say this once and I’ll never bring it up again. Everyone is going out into the world, or ready to do it. Every time the younger women and I get together at night, they all talk about what’s coming next, about getting their own house and having another kid even. And they can because, even when the project ends, they’ll still have a family. They’ll have each other. When it ends, it’s just going to be me out there, trying to find my way. And when this ends, it’ll just be you out there. And what will you do? Start up another project? Just do this for the rest of your life?”

“I don’t know, Izzy,” Dr. Grind remarked. “It’s hard to think about what comes after all this ends.” He paused, considered something for perhaps the hundredth time, and then said, “I suppose it was an act of pure hubris to call it The Infinite Family Project.”