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The first Christmas you are meant to spend with your new family is going to be good. Magical. Perfect, even. You are going to be the perfect little housewife, although you’d never really planned on being one, because your husband deserves a good housewife and you’ve just had a baby boy only a few short months ago, and if that sounds constraining, it isn’t. Everything just….
Well, it makes sense in a way that your life has never really made sense before.
This is who you are, who you are supposed to be – Diana Goodman, wife of Dan Goodman, mother of Gabriel Goodman – and you are going to knock it out of the park with how wonderful your first Christmas together is going to be!
Of course, Gabe cries a lot, but you still make sure to get the right holiday meals cooked leading up to the big day. You go with you husband and son to pick out a live Christmas tree – surely that won’t be too hard to take care of, will it? And you faithfully fill the troth or whatever it’s called with water like you’re supposed to. You don’t hand sew your new last name into the frilly red tree mat like some people do, but you get one with it on there, and maybe it’s spelled wrong, but Gooma isn’t so far off. You get three stockings hung on a mantle that you put in place so that it looks like you have a fireplace (you don’t), and the mantle slopes a little bit because you aren’t that great at hammering things (especially not when Gabe keeps crying and wanting fed, and especially not when you’re trying to feed him and get the mantle on at the same time, which no one thought was a good idea), and maybe you stole a couple of them from parents who didn’t want to give them up (Dan’s parents still don’t like you, and your parents think that you could be doing so many more things with your life than just getting married and settling down and raising a child), but it’s…it’s the thought that counts!
It’s! the thought! that counts!!
And the little Santa sits just right on the back of the couch so that he can stare out of the window, and the lights on the Christmas tree only go out every now and again, but you’re really good at figuring out which light Gabe fiddled with to get them turned off, and then sometimes they race in all sorts of different colors, and you even got a bunch of Gabe’s First Christmas! ornaments and—
And—
Christmas comes a little too late.
You can’t get to sleep.
You sit on the couch half-hunched over, staring at the wall where your crooked little fireplace should be. Sometimes you can’t breathe.
Dan places a hand on your shoulder when he wakes up. “You didn’t need to fill the stockings, Di.”
“Yes, I did,” you say, not looking up at him. “Yes, I did.”
He doesn’t get it.
All of the presents stay under the tree, all still wrapped. You won’t open yours without Gabe, and you won’t let Dan open his either, no matter how much you spent on them. Eventually, all of the presents get put into a large trunk that you hide in the back of your closet. When you get a better house, it gets moved into the basement. Sometimes, Dan tells you it’s time to go through and get rid of all of it.
The paralyzing ache in your chest always says no.
The next year, you have another child, and she feels like a replacement for Gabe.
Really, it’s Dan trying to make you feel better. You know that. Sex used to always make you feel better. It didn’t make you feel better now. And when you don’t want to keep the baby, Dan tells you it’ll be good, it’ll be great, it’ll be just like it was only better, because this time nothing bad will happen.
You don’t know how to ask him how do you know, and he doesn’t understand why you won’t hold her, why you don’t want anything to do with her, and maybe if she’d been another boy, this would be easier, but it feels so much like Dan just wants to pretend that Gabe never existed, because he never talks about him, it’s always Natalie, Natalie, Natalie, and you want to scream, you want to scream, you want to say his name, you want to remember, you want to hang up a stocking that’s buried in the back of your closet but when you pull it out, Dan gives you such a look, and you just….
You give up. You are very good at giving up.
(Sometimes you’re certain that Natalie doesn’t like you. Most of the time, you just can’t bring yourself to interact. It shouldn’t be hard to buy her a cute Christmas outfit and decorate her in it the same way that you decorate the tree and the house, but. you stare at her, and the thing is you know she’s her, but you see Gabe, and you freeze, and you tense up, and you don’t even pick her up in the crib.
Dan doesn’t listen to you. You don’t listen to you either.)
Your therapist tells you to be gentle with yourself around Christmas.
You don’t know what it means to be gentle.
You don’t know what it means to be gentle with you.
The new meds make the Christmas lights bright and loud and painful, so for Natalie’s fifth Christmas (you don’t remember much of the others, and you wonder why that is) there are no decorations on the house, there are no decorations on the tree – there are some ornaments, sure, but no lights to see them by, and there’s no driving around to look at all of the lights on all of the other houses or near City Hall, and you don’t really leave the house much, and then you realize that it hurts to smell anything too strongly, which means no cooking and no going in any stores right now because they all have those cinnamon-scented pinecones, and then the Christmas music they’re constantly playing is so loud, and sometimes….
Sometimes, when you’re in the house by yourself, unable to really do much of anything? Sometimes you imagine what it would be like if Gabe were here with you. You think maybe you wouldn’t be on any of these meds, and you think maybe that would be a lot better.
(Later, you know this is the first Christmas that Natalie remembers. You hate yourself for it, but you can’t say the four before it were great either. Just better. You’ll try to be better.)
You see Gabe at the church Christmas Eve service.
It’s not like you’re much of church people, but on Christmas Eve, well, why not, right? You could use it. Probably. So you go every year – you’re not even Easter and Christmas people, you’re just Christmas Eve people, but you go, and it’s comforting and—
And you see Gabe.
Later, you won’t know how you know it’s Gabe, but you do. You know it’s him. He grins at you and winks, and you don’t just feel calm and comfortable, you feel happy, because that’s your boy! That’s your baby boy! Playing the role of one of the wise men! You think he’s maybe carrying the myrrh? But you can’t really tell the difference between all of the gifts.
You talk in the car about how great Gabe did, and he chats excitedly back with you, and Dan says maybe you need better meds.
You don’t understand why he says that. Your meds are working just fine. You’re excited for your son! You turn to Natalie and expect her to be excited, too, but she’s just looking out the window and ignoring you.
Well. That’s fine. She’s just jealous of how well Gabe is doing.
When you mention his name, she winces.
You tell her she’ll do just as well next year because they’ll probably ask her up to play one of her fancy piano pieces. She nods to herself.
You don’t know what you said.
Gabe tells you he loves his new Christmas present.
You preen.
Sometimes, you feel like Gabe likes you better than anyone else in the family does.
Sometimes…sometimes you almost remember something.
Sometimes, Dan says he died, and sometimes, you almost believe him.
Sometimes, it’s easier to forget.
It’s always easier to forget at Christmas.
Dan rips down Gabe’s stocking for the thirtieth time this year. It feels like a daily struggle; you set everything up after Thanksgiving – you don’t go Black Friday shopping in public anymore, even though there are some really great deals, because you got into a fight with someone a few years ago, and it went very poorly – because that was the last one, and it was for Gabe (and that was also the last one, and that one was for Dan! and it’s so much easier to shop for Natalie because she never wants anything from the sales, but it’s so much harder to shop for Natalie, because you’re never sure just exactly what she wants from you) – but you set everything up after Thanksgiving because that’s the family tradition, that’s when the tree goes up and the ornaments go on it and you all do all of that while playing Christmas music in the background, and sometimes you dance, and sometimes everyone seems happy for once – Gabe always seems happy—
But Dan won’t let you leave Gabe’s stocking up. You know it’s probably because none of you really believe in Santa Claus anymore, but it’s not like he’s ripping anyone else’s down, and you know he’s growing up, your baby boy is growing up, but that’s all the more reason to have a stocking stuffed to the brim with small goodies and chocolate, it’s his favorite, Dan, why are you doing this—
Dan looks at you with something like pity.
Natalie looks at you with something like hate.
You think maybe Gabe isn’t supposed to be here at all.
….
You don’t know why you think that.
Natalie goes to her boyfriend’s house for Christmas.
You don’t blame her.
There’s a lot you still don’t remember. A lot of Christmas. Any Christmases. But Dan is helping! He’s telling you a lot about your life and your lives together, but sometimes….
You feel like something’s missing. You don’t know what it is.
This is the first Christmas in twenty years that you spend alone.
You want it that way.
Christmas is meant to be a time of joy, but for you, it is a time of mourning. You are making space for that this year. A part of you is afraid that you’ll see Gabe again, but you….
You haven’t seen Gabe much in the past several months. A part of you – a part of you that you’re trying to ignore – says that’s because he’s at college. A stronger part of you knows the truth, and that part hopes that the reason you haven’t seen him is that maybe – just maybe – you’re getting better.
If the weaker part of you needs to use Gabe’s age and college as a crutch….
No.
No.
You cannot do that to yourself again.
Gabe is gone because Gabe is dead, and you will accept that—
Natalie is carrying a new little boy with her when they come to visit this year. Henry’s grown to be a good dad, even if he still seems a little embarrassed to have a kid at all, but he’s happy. And he’s happy to be with you. But Natalie is exhausted, and she gives you a look that….
You’re better. You’re both better. You’ve gotten better, but it’s not always better, because the past still happened, and you’re not going to pretend that it hasn’t anymore.
When Natalie places her son in your arms, you stare at the little boy the way you should have stared at her, and when the lump in your throat comes, you let it. You smile. “Hello, little man. Did you miss your grammy?”
He starts to cry. You want to cry, too, but not entirely in a bad way.
Henry makes to move for him, but you wave him off. “It smells like a stinky diaper. I’ve got it.”
You’ve got it.
This isn’t Gabe.
Natalie would never be so cruel. Not to either of you.
Little Mikey has a stinky diaper. You’ve got it.
You’ve got it.