Picture Us In The Light(43)
My skin feels prickly. I should’ve paid more attention to what was in my dad’s files. I remember checks made out to names I didn’t recognize and I remember loan documents, but I should’ve looked more closely at what exactly those things said. At the time I wrote them off as unimportant. Because you never see the whole picture, maybe—you just sculpt the world around you so it fits into the box you’ve made for it, so it matches everything you already know. Or maybe that’s not true, either—maybe you just see what you choose to.
Christmas this year dawns cold and clear, a sharpness infused into the whole world. I go for a run in the morning, all the Christmas lights in the neighborhood dulled and faded in the bright sunlight, and when I get back my mom is in full holiday prep mode.
At heart, I am a child about Christmas. I believe it will fix everything. The act of it, the coming together and the goodwill—I always expect big things from it. And it always manages to flatten all the problems lurking around it, too; if we can shelve whatever’s wrong for the day, then nothing can be quite as bad as it seems.
Tall order, this year. Four days ago, my parents sold my dad’s car, which they tried to spin to me as no big deal, which didn’t work because I’d been hearing them argue about it the past two weeks. When my mom came home from work she was tight-lipped and quiet, aiming most of her conversation toward me in a way that felt pointed, and my dad retreated into himself, eating dinner in silence and then doing the dishes without saying a word. Two days ago they got into a fight over my dad buying two bottles of name-brand mouthwash.
I’ve been trying to escape into drawing the way I always used to. I wanted something new to submit to the 30 Under 30 show and I also wanted to forget about it altogether, but the deadline was coming up and I couldn’t tamp down that force of how badly I wanted it and so I gave up a few days ago and sent in the pieces from my portfolio I thought had the best shot. And I’ve been trying to come up with something Regina can use in her tribute in our March issue, too, but every time I find a starting point, try to trace that line of her cheekbones or the dark curves of her eyebrows, a sick feeling comes pouring into the room the way heat comes through the vents, that same feeling I get when I think about being at school the day of the anniversary, and I have to put my pencil down.
So the mood at home had been dark overall, I guess, with all three of us. But now: Christmas.
My mom always makes sea bass and duck for Christmas and starts planning in the summer, deciding what herbs and vegetables she’ll plant to serve with dinner. This year she found whole chickens on sale a few weeks ago and now four of them are defrosting in pans on the counters, lined up like a small chicken army, and she’s out rooting around in her garden. She’s been worried about the weather all week, worried it’ll be too dry or too cold, always checking the temperature online and going outside to finger the plants to see if there’s been any damage.
We don’t have any family in the area—or really anywhere, I guess, since both my parents are only children whose parents are gone—and we’ve always done holidays with their friends. They mean a lot to my parents, my mom especially. She was lonely here for a while when we first moved, always asking me about my classmates’ parents. I remember when she found out Uncle Benson and Auntie Mabel listed us as emergency contacts for Harold and Anson’s school, it meant so much to her she cried. I always think how she probably would’ve loved to have a big family. I wonder why they never tried for any more after me.
By four, an hour before everyone’s supposed to arrive, my mom’s flying around the house getting stuff ready, dusting and straightening and pulling the plastic covers off all the furniture. Also, she’s turned the heater on for once. It’s legitimately balmy in here.
“Finish wrapping the presents for the kids,” she says over her shoulder on her way to Windex the bathroom mirrors. My dad’s been tasked with sweeping and vacuuming. I wrap the toys she got for everyone and doodle drawings on the wrapping paper with Sharpie. Sometimes when the kids were younger and we’d go out to dinner—always Chinese places with the giant lazy Susans and paper place mats on the table—I’d entertain the kids by drawing on the place mats. One time Harold Chiu carefully tore off and saved a drawing I made him of a robot.
But even trying to draw random crap on present wrapping that’ll get crumpled up and thrown away—I’ve got nothing. I resort to drawing a bunch of cartoony dogs that look like Sushi, the Lims’ collie, which will make the kids happy, at least.
“Do you think there will be enough food?” my mom says when I come back into the kitchen to get more tape. “I’m worried there isn’t enough.”
“What are you talking about? There’s always way too much food.”
“I should have gotten fish, too. Maybe I can send Baba to—”
“There’s plenty, Ma. I’m sure everyone else will bring stuff, too.”
“No, I told them not to bring anything.”
It makes me laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I told them I would cook everything.”
“Okay, cool, I’m sure they totally listened and will all definitely show up empty-handed.”
“Should I send Baba—”
“No.”
“Maybe I should get—”