In the bike aisle, I was struck with a memory. Months ago, Hannah had asked Greg if she could have a two-wheeler for Christmas because Annie down the street got one for her birthday. Greg and I made eye contact over Hannah’s head with the same thought that we each had on a regular basis. Our baby is growing up. Our conversation later that night after the girls went to bed was one of the last times I felt us connect. We talked for an hour, about our lives, the girls growing up too fast, what we thought they would be like when they were teenagers. We laughed. We each had a glass of wine, and for once, the television remained dark.
I felt a ray of hope. A pinhole in my balloon of despair was letting in a small, yet unmistakable beam of light. If I could make Christmas extraordinary, fill our house with laughter and voices and magic, maybe we’d start the climb out of our black gorge of sorrow. I was so tired of feeling tired, of feeling helpless and hopeless. I looked around at the people in the store—mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents—all vying for the best present, the favorite present, anything to extract the brilliant smile of a child. I could be one of them, if only for a moment.
“Can I help you?”
I turned to a young man of maybe eighteen and tried on a smile. He smiled back.
“I want a pink bicycle. Not Barbie or Dora or anything like that. Just pink and sparkly with streamers on the handlebars and a bell.”
He laughed and brought me around the aisle. He pointed at a bike in the rack that fit my description.
Pushing my luck, I continued, “What about a tricycle? Do you have anything similar?”
He showed me all the tricycles, and I spotted a pink one. No streamers, but it did have a bell. “I’ll take one of each.”
“Do you want me to ring it up?” he asked.
“No, I’m not done yet.” I felt jittery… excited. To have any emotion but despair felt alien, but wonderful. I had spent about half of the three hundred that Mom had given me. I returned to the aisles that mere moments before had seemed overwhelming.
Barbies! Hannah had no Barbie dolls; I put three boxes in my cart. Then as an afterthought, I grabbed a Ken. Someone around here should have a man. I rounded the corner to the dress-up aisle. Into the cart went two dresses, one for each of my daughters. Shoes to match? Surely. I selected a new doll for Leah, as she only had hand-me-downs, and also picked out a canopy doll bed, complete with bedspread and pillow shams. I bought them each electronic reading systems, with a few books. I found markers, crayons, paints, coloring books, Play-Doh, and two pads of paper, along with a purple bucket to hold it all. By the time I was done, my cart was filled to the brim, not including the two bikes waiting at the register.
The total rang up to five hundred and seventy-five dollars, more than I had ever spent on Christmas for the two of them. A very small part of me was appalled, but more than that, I was excited. At the last minute, I threw in three rolls of wrapping paper and some ribbon, then ran my credit card to cover the difference. I was filling the void Greg had left in our lives with material possessions, and while some would argue it wasn’t healthy or was only temporary, I didn’t care. For the moment, I felt alive, human, and normal. And maybe my high would be contagious. Maybe some of that Christmas magic would rub off on the girls, and for one day, we would all be happy again.
However high on shopping I was, I knew my moods were fickle, and that by Christmas, I could very well be back underwater, drowning in sorrow, and all my efforts today would be for naught. But one person could help. He could buoy my capricious moods and keep the spirit of Christmas afloat despite the weight of sadness heavy in the air. I got in the car, started the engine to get the heat going, and pulled my cell phone out of my purse to dial a number I knew by heart.
“Hi, it’s me,” I said when he picked up. “Got any plans for Christmas?”
I stood in the guest bedroom, surveying the white sheets tucked under the mattress with folded precision. I’d never cared much about the state of the room for Drew, but it had somehow started to matter. I opened my grandmother’s handmade quilt— zigzag triangles of green and red on creamy white—and shook it out, letting it fall to rest squarely on the bed.
I thought of the Christmas four years ago when Drew had visited. Hannah was a newborn, red and colicky, and I was exhausted all the time. I’d invited him every year, and he’d always said no. But for some reason, that year, he agreed. When I opened the door, he handed me a bottle of red wine.
Greg stood behind me in the hall. “She can’t drink red anymore. Since the baby,” he commented, tilting his head to the side, in a way only I knew was condescending.