Really Good, Actually(45)

the turkey was put in the oven two to three hours behind schedule, which meant “cocktail hour” extended well past eight p.m., which meant Uncle Jamie fell asleep at the table;

while slopping potato onto my plate, thrice-married Auntie Gillian told me we were part of a sacred sisterhood of jilted wives;

two middle-aged people had an argument about whether free speech still existed;

a twenty-three-year-old second cousin announced she was pregnant, leading an older first cousin once removed to accuse her of “trying to make Maggie feel bad”;

when I took the first cousin aside to tell her I was okay, she started crying and told me she was “barren”;

a great-aunt asked the cousins to go around the table and say whether we had Jesus in our lives;

my sister got drunk and told me her “Christmas wish” was that I would one day “find happiness again”;

the great-uncle who usually played piano at these things had recently died, so instead of carols there was a very maudlin YouTube-based karaoke sing-along;

oldest cousin’s new girlfriend sat in a different cousin’s lap for an entire verse (!) of Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me”;

my grandmother asked if I was seeing anyone special (I thought of Simon but told her no), then suggested I try to avoid “shacking up with another vegetarian”;

I ate so much of the cheese board I briefly considered pretending the dogs had gotten at it;

I did, in the end, pretend this.



When my mother and I left for midnight mass, a small but committed contingent was still going strong, cheerfully arguing over card games, encouraging others to make speeches, and getting emotional about the Pope. Soon they would fish a harmonica out of a cupboard and scream-sing folk songs and dance around the kitchen.

My sister stayed, hoping for the revelation of some major family secret, or at least more almond shortbread. Christmas was the one time a year my mother went to church, and we usually traded off who accompanied her. This year was Hannah’s turn, but after watching Auntie Gillian corner me to warn that it was tough out there for a single gal in her thirties, that gravity came for all of us, and no matter my moisturizing routine, my neck would be my downfall, she suggested I go in her place. I thanked her and headed out to the driveway, where my mom was trying and failing to defrost the windshield. She fished the ice scraper out of the back seat and passed it to me out the window. I cleared a little peephole, her side only, and got in.

“I hope Jesus appreciates that I stayed sober for this,” she said, reversing into the street.

I reminded her that newborn babies can’t recognize color or faces, so the concept of designated driving was probably over his head.

“Oh, God,” she said, sounding exhausted. “Not tonight, okay? Please.” She patted my thigh lovingly so I would know that although she sometimes found me maddening, she would also, literally, die for me.

The church was soothingly grand, candlelit and cavernous, with that nice Roman Catholic smell (you can’t say much for the institution, but they do have a nose for incense). I only ever went to church with my mother at Christmas, though my wedding had been in one, at Jon’s parents’ insistence. They had gotten more traditional than expected about the ceremony—his mother and I even had a clipped, tense exchange about why I did not want to wear a veil.

In the end, I lost the veil argument, and the vintage lace my mother-in-law found was gorgeous. I wore it with a simple bias-cut silk slip that was more expensive than anything I’d ever owned, and now sat in a box in my studio apartment, judging me from a garment bag. It had been beautiful, and I looked beautiful in it, but walking down the aisle that day I still felt enormously stupid. What was I doing, veil or not, tottering around a church in a virgin costume in front of everyone I knew, toward a man I’d been living with for years? Why did we need to validate our commitment with this showy little stroll? Should I copy the gait they did in wedding movies, one-and-join, two-and-join? But however stupid the procession, it had been thrilling to arrive at the front of the church, grab my boyfriend’s sweaty hands, and make him my husband in front of everyone.

I pushed the unwanted images—Jon’s big smile, our friends and family tittering as I instantly flubbed the first line of our “modernized” vows, that kiss—out of my mind. Mass carried on, and Mom got bored sometime around the blessing of the crib. I could tell, because she started flipping through the hymnal like it was a nail salon gossip magazine.

“‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah’ . . . a classic,” I whispered.

She rolled her eyes and shut the book, then put an arm around me and asked if I was feeling okay: “I know the first Christmas can be hard.”

I told her I was angry that Jon’s parents hadn’t reached out. I knew he probably wouldn’t say anything, but I had been part of Christmas in their house since I’d been an adult. Didn’t that merit a card, or at least an email? My mom told me anger was not useful, that there was no sense in holding on to resentment about people who were no longer a part of my life. I told her she had recently told me, in detail, about a fight she and my father had had about vacation plans in 1997.

“That’s different,” she said.

“How?”

“Because he’s an asshole.”

She motioned for me to keep my eyes up front and launched into “Silent Night” with avoidant vim. It snowed as we drove back to her house, picking up Ed and my sister from Aunt Linda’s on the way. In the car they gave us the debrief: the Ariana Grande girlfriend had left with a different cousin than the one with whom she’d arrived; Nana told everyone she could see the ghost of the pianist uncle, and he was mad; the teen cousins got in such a hard-core tussle in the basement that one of them seemed to have sprained something.