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The first year they’re old enough to know it’s coming, they fight over who gets Christmas, because they don’t know any better. The mystery and wonder are still intact.
The fight is broken up by their father. Their real one, and it’s what Rebecca One remembers more than anything. They are too young for it to be a real fight, maybe six, or seven, and it’s more of a flurry of hair tugging and a few well placed pushes than the brawls that tempt them nowadays. Rebecca One, ever the instigator, stays below ground. Rebecca Two gets Christmas.
That year, that first year, it doesn’t come. Rebecca One blames herself. She doesn’t know any better. The mystery and wonder are gone.
This year, the rink at Somerset House is bathed in beautiful purple light. The air is sharp and cold. Her breath clouds in front of her as she watches families and couples skate, limbs tangling up sometimes like they are all toddlers just learning to walk, and she thinks that there are easier ways to learn that than with blades strapped to the bottoms of your feet.
It looks fun, she thinks too, and then doesn’t.
She gathers her scarf around her mouth and nose to fight back the cold, and turns away, back to her wandering. These little vacations feel like the only times she can think.
“Are you doing the tree this year?”
She hears his voice from the living room, and already knows the answer. Her little heart burns bright with anger; Not for her brother, not for her family, but for their laziness, all of them. For herself. She deserves better, wants better; Celia, some semblance of a woman that might have one day been something like a mother to them both, grunts, and Rebecca One rounds the corner in time to watch Will’s shoulders hike then slouch, her brother shifting uncomfortably where he stands as he wrings his little hands, still muddy from playing in the garden. Her nose crinkles in distaste before he can speak again, voice quiet and a bit confused.
“...Why not?”
She remembers Celia stirring from her cushioned throne then, agitated and juggling remotes, but not to stand. Only to pause the television and look at them, both of them, and she remembers her words, hissed like a disturbed viper that would rather bake on the asphalt or be hit by a car than slither to safety. Your father is too busy as is , she’d said, and the unspoken follow up question lingered; If he’s too busy, can’t you?
The answer to that had been no. She was eight, and he was ten, and she had thought that between the two of them, they could do it. So, if out of nothing but stubbornness, she had pulled herself up by her bootstraps; Pulled her brother out of his wallowing, stolen a paycheck, and returned home with an evergreen hardly taller than Will, scrounged from a fair outside a local church they had never once stepped foot inside.
Will hadn’t thanked her, but she hadn’t expected him to, because she was starting to learn herself and her place along the way. She had wanted a tree. She had resolved, and shifted her little world as she saw fit with nothing but her own two hands, because she wanted ; When her sister had returned from that December’s tour, she had been beaming, if only for the tree. And the lights. The expression had been swiftly wiped away, before father- Their real father- Could see.
But it had been there. That was enough.
Her hands curl around the ceramic mug as it’s handed across the table. She sits by the window now, watching the skaters still, and lets the warmth of the hot chocolate seep into her hands through the leather of her gloves. It’s scalding- She doesn’t even look at the steam that curls up and up and up to tickle her nose, letting a slow breath out through her mouth fog the glass in front of her. In here, it’s quiet. The rink is serene, the ebb and flow of gracious bobbing figures pushing off, pushing off, one foot to the next and sliding gracefully in loops, like something from the inside of a snow globe. The reality is messy- Far more messy. She watches a toddler go down, sees but doesn’t hear the shriek that is more alarm than pain as his mother swoops in to hide him from sight and comfort the howling. But it is quiet.
“You shouldn’t bother. He’s spoiled- He doesn’t deserve to get everything he wants.”
They are ten, and he is twelve. The tree is more elaborate. Christmas is little more than a shift- Rebecca Two takes it, every year, and Rebecca One doesn’t care. Now are the days of bills and mortgages and insurance, and they have the family’s income at their disposal, among a fair few other things- So, like everything else at her whim, she uses it to get what she wants.
And she agrees with her sister. Of course she does. Because now too are the days of cooking and cleaning and Will tracking mud all through the kitchen, without a care in the world. Always, she is cleaning up his messes. It’s her lot in life, and when all of this is over, she thinks, the pawn and the king go into the same box. The thought makes her dig her nails into her own palms with frustration, because it isn’t fair- And so, of course she agrees.
But there’s more to it than that.
So, when the dawn breaks, there are still two presents under the tree. Agreement or not.
She finishes the hot chocolate, and the tap of the empty mug against the wooden table is drowned out by the ambient sounds of the season. Chairs scrape against cobble, utensils clink together- Somewhere, glass shatters into a thousand little crystals, sparkling along the floor and scattering like tiny diamonds. She pushes in her chair, pays her bill, and doesn’t tip.
What has anyone here done to earn more than she has? To deserve it? King and pawn go into the same box, she thinks, but the king returns last, and the day the pawns will face last call is fast approaching- It can’t come fast enough. No amount of charity will change that, and nor should it. Distantly, she can hear a child crying- The same one who had fallen? Maybe. On her way out, she passes them, the crying quieted by the same comfort of a warm mug pressed into small hands, mother doting over a scraped knee that child has long since forgotten.
Soon, she thinks, all this suffering will be wiped clean. All this joy, too. She moves briskly, and leaves the thought behind, a bandage slapped on to make up time already bought.
Mother and son shuffle back to the rink unsteadily, blades on their feet. She watches his hand slip into hers and squeeze, and then watches anything else her ravenous gaze can find, because the box is all she sees.
It’s as patient as she is, she thinks. As inevitable, too.
They are eleven, and he is thirteen. This will be their last Christmas, one way or another; As she mills through locals and tourists alike in the plaza of Somerset House, she can feel it. The lights are nice, she thinks with a certain finality, and wonders what this place will look like when her people are done with it. Who it will belong to. Her eyes fall on a silver pocket watch through the window of the north wing shop; She would like it.
And she is right. Their last Christmas comes and goes, as uneventful as the first. Two presents under the tree; Her sister comes home smiling.
They are twelve now, and he is fourteen.
Below, Rebecca Two tucks the watch into her breast pocket, a secret treasure.
Above, her sister flicks a match into Jean’s sink and watches the lights, one last time.
Beyond, the box waits for all of them.