Kiss Her Once for Me (39)
Apparently, the first walk in the snow isn’t about the walk at all; it’s about the family photo they take together in the woods to use for the next year’s Christmas card. This becomes clear when Katherine hands Andrew the tripod to carry and begins fussing with Jack’s hair. The grandmas are both clutching stainless steel-thermoses, and when Katherine side-eyes them, Lovey says, “They’re hot toddies. You want one?”
“It’s twelve thirty.”
“We’re very old, dear,” Meemaw explains. “We need something to keep us warm. You wouldn’t want us catching our deaths out there.”
Katherine ignores the grandmas. “First Christmas tradition of the year!” She beams as we bundle up over our ridiculous sweaters and set out. I wonder if Alan Prescott ever wears his heinous Christmas sweater, or if Katherine has to photoshop him into these annual pictures.
The Kim-Prescott cabin is on an expansive piece of property at the top of a steep hill, and as far as I can tell, theirs is the only place for miles. We all trudge through the snow past the Airstream and Jack’s truck, toward the copse of trees that runs alongside a half-frozen stream. And for a split second, I forget about Jack, and I forget about Andrew and Dylan. I forget about my ruined ten-year-plan and the money that might save me. I forget everything but this. Snow. The beautiful magic of snow.
The woods are hushed by the thick layer of fresh powder, the silence and stillness punctured only by the sound of our boots crunching in unison. Everything is silvery and pure, and my cynicism goes out with a whimper. I’ve always loved this. The majestic white sweep of snow that makes the world anew, that makes the world feel slow and unhurried, like you can curl up and just be for a moment.
“What does your family usually do for Christmas?” Lovey asks, pulling me back to reality.
My gloved hand is intertwined with Andrew’s, because apparently hand-holding is his solution to selling our relationship. “I don’t really know. My parents aren’t really… around?”
Lovey crinkles her brow in a question she’s too polite to ask. Jack is out of earshot for the moment, clomping through the snow up ahead with Dylan and Paul Hollywood.
“They’re not dead,” I clarify. “They’re just… I’m not close with my parents, and I don’t have any other family,” I attempt to explain. “I mean, I do have other family, but most of them disowned my parents for getting pregnant with me out of wedlock, and then my parents held a grudge and didn’t let me see my other relatives growing up. Which would have been fine, but my own parents didn’t want to see much of me, either, so I was mostly just alone a lot as a kid.”
I stop blathering when Lovey reaches up to press a gloved hand to my cheek. I think she might be as lit as her sweater recommends, but the gesture is comforting all the same. Meemaw, hot toddy sloshing, declares, “Fuck ’em, sugar.”
I startle. “Excuse me?”
“Fuck your parents,” Meemaw says with even more force, shooting me a look I can’t entirely parse. “I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but any parent who would ignore their child at the holidays doesn’t deserve the title.” Meemaw takes a pull from her thermos. “Some of us are born into families that deserve us and some of us have to spend our lives searching for them. You found Andrew, and that means you’re part of this family now.”
Andrew squeezes my hand, and for a moment in the snow, I let myself forget this isn’t real.
“All right, everyone!” Katherine announces when we arrive at the perfect spot for the family photo—a clearing with good light and a felled tree, with snow-covered branches framed perfectly in the background. “Coats off! Places! Places! You all know the drill! Dylan, you will not glare, so help me—”
Andrew sets up the tripod, and Katherine puts her iPhone on self-timer. I try to move to the edge of the photo—to Andrew’s far side, where I will be easy to crop out in the future.
“Ellie, sweet,” Katherine coos from behind the camera. “Get in the middle there. Yes, that’s right. Between Andrew and Jack. That’s perfect.”
I adjust myself so Andrew is on my right, his hand still secured in mine, while Jack is on my left, in a gay Christmas sweater, beaming at her mother behind the camera. “Smile, Ellie!” Katherine taps the edges of her practiced grin, and when I smile, it comes easily, effortlessly.
Afterward, I can’t stop thinking about how it will be impossible to photoshop me out of next year’s Christmas card, how I’ll always be there, in the middle of the Kim-Prescotts.
* * *
I should not be surprised that Meemaw throws the first snowball.
It starts innocuously enough. On the trek back to the cabin, Meemaw pauses for a moment under the guise of fixing her shoelaces, and before anyone truly sees what happens, a dense snowball collides with the side of Katherine’s face.
Katherine’s gloved hand wipes away the snow on her cheek. “Really, Barbara,” she says primly, before she bends down, gathers up snow, and chucks it at her mother-in-law. Then Katherine—elegant, decorous Katherine Kim—cackles.
It’s impossible to know who throws the third, fourth, or fifth snowball, because pretty soon, I’m dodging frozen missiles from all sides.
I try to hide behind Andrew, hoping he’ll protect me from his maniacal family, but instead, he dumps a handful of snow down the back of my puffy jacket, and it’s Dylan who grabs my hand and tugs me into the trees so we’re concealed from the onslaught. I’m half convinced Dylan is about to use this whole snowball fight as a cover for impaling me on an icicle, but then Katherine and Lovey dart into the trees alongside us, and I understand: battle lines have been drawn.