My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(71)

“What kind of art does your mom make?” Russell asked.

“Sculptures. Though not the traditional kind with clay or marble. She works in abstract forms.” She reached to her top shelf and pulled down a small cube, all tangled wires and glass fragments. “Most of her work is on a much larger scale,” Sophie explained. “Like one piece could fill this room. Alas, my roommate Cheryl said she needed a bed so we couldn’t keep one here.”

For a second, she imagined Cheryl’s horrified expression if she had brought one of her mother’s larger, stranger installations. But then she remembered that Cheryl had seemed to admire her mom’s smaller piece. She’d held it a long time the first time she’d seen it, much as Russell was doing now. “Your mom makes sculptures,” she’d said. “My mom organizes bake sales.” Sophie had taken it as a veiled big-city comment, yet another sign of her otherness, but only now did she wonder if perhaps she hadn’t missed Cheryl’s droll brand of sarcasm.

Russell turned the piece in his hand, seeing how the light played into the angles. “My grandmother used to make these things … not sure if you’d call them sculptures or what, out of wood and sea grass. On Saint Vincent. Ever heard of it?”

“It’s an island in the Caribbean, right?” Sophie said.

“Yeah. It’s where my mom’s from. She came to the States for college, met my dad, and never went back. I used to go spend summers on the island with my grandmother. In this little house, painted in island colors, my grandma said, and there were always cousins running around, chickens and goats, too.”

Russell was smiling at the memory. Sophie smiled along with him.

“Then my father started sending me to camp during the summers: tennis camp, sailing camp, golf camp. We only go to Saint Vincent for vacation now, every year for Christmas. Last few years, we’ve stayed at a fancy resort, like tourists. And people treat us different. Like tourists. Even my own people.” He set down the sculpture, his expression wistful and yearning. “Except for my grandmother.”

Sophie closed her eyes. She could picture his grandmother, a beautiful lined face, hands tough with years of solid work, a stern manner that masked a deep ferocious love. After a bit, the image of his grandmother merged with Luba, who she pictured last year, broom in hand, swatting the smoke alarm after it went haywire from all the latke frying. Instead of pushing the memory away, she let it wash over. She was surprised to find that it didn’t burn. She could hold on to it. Then she opened her eyes. “Is your grandmother still alive?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Russell smiled.

“Are you going to see her?” It suddenly felt very important to her that he was.

“Flying down Sunday,” he said. “Looking forward to it.” He paused. “And dreading it. You know? Holiday stuff.”

“It’ll be okay,” she told him, but the words ricocheted back to her. It’ll be okay. That’s what people had been telling Sophie for a while now. After Luba died. It would be okay; time heals. After she started college. It would be okay; leaving home is an adjustment. Sophie hadn’t believed it. You can’t undo loss. You can’t unmake a mistake.

But now she was wondering if a garden of memories might not grow over the hole of losing Luba. And if college wasn’t a little like that first swim every summer—no matter how much Sophie looked forward to it, she still had to get used to the chilly water. Maybe anywhere Sophie had gone this year would’ve felt like a Bumf*ckville.

Because this Bumf*ckville had diners dropped from Oz. It had wingmen who had her back in poetry class. It had people like Cheryl, who, come to think of it, was pretty big-citily sarcastic herself. And it had guys like Russell.

What if the mistake wasn’t coming here, but being blind to any of that?

What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? she thought to herself for the umpteenth time. But it felt different now. If she’d made a mistake, there was time to fix it. And more than that, she was looking forward to fixing it.

*

They unplugged all the Christmas lights and laid the candles out in a vaguely menorah-like shape on the ground. Sophie found Luba’s menorah and put it out, too. They lit the candles. Where there was darkness, now, a warm glow of light.

“Normally you’d say a prayer in Hebrew,” Sophie said. “But I kind of think we’re doing our own thing, right? So I’m going to offer my thanks to that dumb caroling concert tonight.”

“Okay then,” Russell said. “I offer mine to reindeer sweaters.”

Sophie chuckled. “To cars with butt warmers.”

“And butts in butt warmers.”

“To hash browns,” Sophie said.

“Don’t forget pie.”

“Pie with cheese.”

Russell pulled Sophie into his lap. He was tall and she could sit in the fold of his legs, her own legs crossed under her.

“To perfect fits,” Russell murmured.

“And imperfect fits,” Sophie said.

Sophie reached up to touch Russell’s lips, and he grasped her fingers, kissing them, one by one: thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky, and back again.

“To Ned Flanders,” Russell said.

“Oh, yes, a thousand times to Ned Flanders. We should devote the holiday to him,” Sophie said.