Chapter Text
Christmas began with a blizzard.
Keith woke when Laura slipped into his room and ripped open the curtains to the windows. Bright snow came down in a flurry and he grabbed his blanket to pull it over his head.
“What the hell, Laura? Close the fucking curtains!”
“I’m telling Mom you’re cussing again,” she said in her usual deadpan voice.
He heard the curtains scroll shut and dared to peek out from the darkness of his blanket. Laura stood there in her long nightgown, a hand still on the edge of the frilly curtain fabric. “She’ll probably spare me when she finds out why I’m cussing at you. Seriously, what is wrong with you?”
“It’s Christmas,” she said. Rather than rip the curtains wide, she partied them enough for him to see the swirl of snow flurrying around the window panes. A complete whiteout, he couldn’t see their backyard, the garage or the back gate leading to the alley that ran behind the house.
Peeling back his comforter, Keith sat up and rubbed one of his eyes with the heel of a palm. “Great. A snow storm. Maybe that means we don’t have to go to Gramma Marge’s this year.”
“Fat chance,” Laura said. “Come on, get up. You know how Mom insists we open family gifts first and Jerry and Mike are talking about coming back here to drag you out.”
“Great, just what I need. What time is it?”
“Seven.”
Keith made a face and threw the covers back, swinging his legs over the side of his bed. “How did we ever decide to bother Mom and Dad at five in the morning? I don’t wanna even be up this early anymore.”
Laura wrinkled her nose, but there was no smile on her lips. She rarely expressed anything other than neutrality. “We were six and nine. Christmas was magical then, I guess.”
The holidays lost their sparkle at some point. Now all Keith saw when he looked out the window was snow, and the desire to get out in it later for sledding or snowboarding. Provided their mother didn’t veto it with her safety concerns. After insisting they drive to Gramma Marge’s house for a family dinner in East Rutherford, an hour away.
“Get out. Let me get dressed or something,” he said.
Laura shrugged and left the room. Keith didn’t know why he insisted on getting dressed, until he looked down and saw his pajama pants. Faded yellow with comically drawn, green dinosaurs. The sort of thing Jerry and Mike would tease him about endlessly. He was sixteen now, wasn’t that a little too old to be wearing dinosaur pajamas?
He threw on a pair of jeans and a STEXEN t-shirt with the band’s logo. A pair of flaming lips, wide open with a tongue sticking out. The kind of thing he knew his mother would demand he change before they bundle up into the car to make the drive to his grandmother’s house.
It was cool, though. STEXEN was the kind of rock band all of Keith’s friends listened to.
“There you are,” his father chided as Keith entered the living room.
Mike and Jerry were already seated in front of the Christmas tree, holding something out where Laura couldn’t grab it. Keith frowned, and when Mike’s hand roamed a little too close he reached out and snagged the object he withheld from their sister.
“Hey, little brother, what the hell,” Mike said as he tried to snatch it back.
“Boys,” their mother said with her breathy, exasperated voice. The kind she used in her kindergarten class at Andersville Grade School. It usually did very little to curb Jerry or Mike’s behavior. They were college students, Mike a sophomore and Jerry a senior, soon to graduate.
But nothing about them screamed mature. Mike played for the college football team, and still had the same smug attitude that carried him through high school to an athletic scholarship. Jerry was a little more self aware, but when it came to teasing his thirteen year old sister, all bets were off.
Keith kept the object out of his brother’s reach as he glanced at it. A crystal pendant in the shape of a heart, likely a gift from their mother she opened before he arrived. He held it out to Laura, who took it from him while sticking her tongue out at two of her much older brothers.
He watched her slip it over the top of her head, touching it as it came to rest against her collarbone. For a moment, he swore he saw his sister smile. But it vanished as she glanced up at the sound of their father’s voice.
“Merry Christmas, everyone. Keith, how about you do the honor of handing out gifts this year? Since you’re late to the party.”
“Yeah, Keith,” Mike intoned with a mocking voice. “You get to be the Santa bitch this year.”
“Mike, please,” their mother said.
“Sorry, Mom,” Mike said with a grin. And just as she began to relax, he added, “But he is a little bitch.”
“That’s enough,” their father interjected before the argument could go any further. “It’s Christmas, Mike. Mind yourself at least for one day.”
Jerry gave his brother a shove and a private exchange of looks traded between them before Mike heaved a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. “Fine. Go ahead, Keith.”
Keith plopped down in front of the tree, at the glittering array of colorfully wrapped presents. He grabbed one and read the tag. “This one’s for Dad.”
His father, seated in his favorite lounge chair, leaned forward and held his hands out to catch it when Keith tossed it over. “Keep going, we don’t have forever.”
Keith grimaced as he reached for another package. That was code, and it meant his parents still intended to brave the blizzard and head for Gramma Marge’s house. Just when he hoped they might decide against it. He longed for a day sledding down the hill at the end of the block, not the anise and mildew scented halls of his grandmother’s house in the next county.
The next gift had Jerry’s name on it, then Laura’s, and Mike’s. He grabbed a long package that squished beneath his fingers, finding the name on it was his mother’s. Then he spotted something huge, shoved far back behind the tree.
Keith knew what his present was the second he laid eyes on it, eagerly forgetting about sledding or his grandmother’s house or anything else. Leaning over he snagged a corner and dragged it out, just as he heard Mike begin to enthuse about his gift.
“Oh hell yeah!” he exclaimed as he held aloft the record album for his favorite band. “Poison Parallel rocks! Way better than STEXEN!”
Keith barely heard him, too enthralled with the present in his lap to respond to his brother’s taunt. He peeled back the wrapping paper, spotting the black guitar bag. Unzipping it, he revealed the Telecaster bass, running a hand over the body before twanging one of the strings experimentally.
“Shit, that’s a nice guitar, Keith,” he heard Jerry say. No one said a word about his cussing this time.
Looking up, Keith noticed the entire family paused to stare at the unwrapped guitar. Mike put the album down in his lap and crossed his arms over his chest. Jerry began folding his new shirt. His mother’s hands tightened around the thick, soft robe in her lap. Laura’s brows furrowed, staring at the strings in contemplation.
It wasn’t brand new, he could tell that immediately as he fully removed it from the bag and set it into his lap. Clearly used, and well loved by whoever previously owned it. It didn’t matter to Keith. It was a better, newer model than the old bass he found in the garage two summers ago.
“Patty, where did you find that?” he heard his father ask behind him.
His mother gave a breathy laugh and in his head he could picture her waving it off like she always did. “Oh I found it at this garage sale and thought Keith should have it.”
“Really, who’s having garage sales at this time of the year?”
His mother never responded, not verbally. Keith’s gaze was on the guitar, not the low key argument beginning to erupt behind him.
“You’ll play that in the garage, same rules as your other guitar.”
“In December?” Keith protested.
His father sighed. “Winter rules apply I guess. But by eight I expect it put away."
Keith strummed the strings, the sound tinny without attachment to an amplifier. Feeling through the wrapping paper he found a baggie full of cords, the strap, and a brand new cleaning kit.
Laura stared in the vicinity of the guitar with her usual deadpan expression. Something about it unnerved him, the way she always unnerved him when she stared through things rather than at them.
She inhaled and blinked, looking up to meet his gaze. When she spoke her words were just as flat as her countenance. “Must be nice. I got another doll.”
“Okay, everyone,” their mother announced. “Let’s keep going. We need to be at your grandmother’s house by noon today.”
“Patty, maybe we should reconsider.”
Keith reached beneath the tree as his parents found a new thing to argue about. He pulled out the gift he and his brothers purchased for Laura and passed it over to her. “This isn’t a doll at least.”
“Thank goodness,” she muttered. Keith listened to her tear the paper as he found a gift for Mike and tossed it at him.
“It’s once a year!” their mother yelled, her shriek loud enough to stop everyone in their tracks. Getting up from her chair, she didn’t even notice the thick robe sliding to the floor as she put her hands on her hips and yelled at their father. “We only see my mother once a year, Carl! I don’t care if there’s a blizzard out there, we’re going!”
“Mom, chill,” Jerry said softly.
Mike put a hand on Jerry's arm and shook his head. Even he knew better than to open his mouth and say anything. Patricia Cutler was soft spoken and preferred to avoid confrontation, but once her patience was gone, she became a cartoon version of the Tasmanian Devil and could not be stopped until she wore herself out.
“I’m calm!” she shrieked as she stormed out of the room. “I’m perfectly calm! Kids, get yourself bundled up! We are going to your grandmother’s house if we have to trudge through waist high snow!”
Keith glanced at the window, the snow still swirling. The corner of the glass panes already had accumulation building up. A great day for sledding at the end of the street, not so much for driving for an hour, one way.
With an exasperated sigh, their father got up from his chair. “We are not going out in a blizzard. Keep opening gifts, kids. We’ll be back.”
He left the room to chase after his wife. Keith realized he was still holding Jerry’s gift in his lap and he held it up, waiting till he had his brother’s attention before tossing it at him. Silence enveloped the room, save for the sound of tearing paper.
“I knew I should have gone with my girlfriend to her parent’s house,” Jerry muttered. “Every fucking year this house gets weirder.”
“Amen to that,” Mike responded. “They should just divorce and get it over with already.”
Keith’s hands stilled, the present in his hand only half unwrapped. The very word divorce sent a chill down his spine. It was easy for Jerry and Mike to suggest it. They were grown, going to college. It wouldn’t affect them as much as it would their younger siblings.
“They aren’t divorcing,” Laura said. “Thanks for the journal, guys. I needed a new one.”
The package with the doll sat beneath the tree, forgotten. A hard bound journal with an illustrated dragon on the cover sat in her lap, along with a new box of colored pens.
Jerry smiled at her. “We may give you guys shit, but we know what to get you for Christmas, at least.”
“Yeah,” Mike agreed as he rolled his shoulders. He wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation, glancing back at the portal out of the living room. They could all hear the faint sounds of their parents shouting at each other in the back bedroom.
“Merry Christmas,” Keith said with a smirk.
It got his brothers to laugh, but not Laura. Not as she stared at his guitar, frowning.