I’ve known him and his twin brother, Carl, since I was born, because our parents would trade us for babysitting. When they were younger, their mom dressed them in different colors of plaid and kept their sandy hair swept across their foreheads. They smelled of chlorine from their pool, where we would all swim every summer, even after we got old enough not to need babysitting anymore. While they called “Marco Polo” or tried to dunk May under, I would tread water and try not to notice Mark in his swimsuit. I knew they were twins and supposed to look the same, but to me, Mark looked like nobody I’d ever seen. He was my first crush. But he and Carl were both in love with May. I was too young for him. Kid, they called me.
Carl and Mark went away to college this year, and I hadn’t seen them since May’s memorial. I remember them both dressed in suits, standing around our house with their parents. I kept staring, because for the first time I couldn’t tell them apart.
But now, I knew it was Mark. He called up, “Hey! Do you need some help?”
I climbed off the ladder. I could see his house down the street, where his parents were out with Carl, putting the final touches on their usual winner-of-the-block decorations, complete with a blow-up Santa Claus. Next to them, our old man neighbor, Mr. Lopez, was fiddling with his glow-in-the-dark manger scene, behind the bars of his wrought iron fence. “Jesus in jail,” May used to joke.
I wondered if I still had a crush on Mark, but I guessed that I didn’t anymore, now that there’s Sky. Still, it was comforting to see him, as if he were proof of a life that used to exist.
When he offered help, I said, “Sure,” laughing. “It’s sorta harder than it looks.”
So together, we strung up the lights, not having to talk about much other than how to get them in place on the hooks and where to run the extension cord.
When we finally climbed down from the roof, it was starting to get dark out.
“So,” I asked, “how’s college?”
“It’s good.” He smiled. “Harder than I thought. But no parents, so that’s nice. You’ll like it.” He looked me up and down. “Crazy,” he said. “You’re all grown-up.”
“Yeah,” I said with a smile. “I guess.”
I was really hoping that he wouldn’t say anything about May and how he was sorry, and, thank goodness, he didn’t. Instead, he said, “How’s your dad?”
“He’s all right. At work.” I gestured to the lights. “I’m going to surprise him with this. Thanks for the help.”
“Well,” he said, “come by if you want some cookies. Mom’s got the oven running twenty-four/seven.”
I nodded, although I knew I wouldn’t.
When Dad came home and saw the lights, he said that I’d put him in the Christmas spirit, so we went out and got a tree from the lot where we always go, in a rural neighborhood in the middle of the South Valley. The thing about traditions is that they hold up the shape of your memory. I saw May and me running up and down the aisles with our hands in our mittens, looking for the sort of tree that we thought would be left behind if we didn’t take it. I picked out the scrawniest tree again, and Dad and I laughed about it.
Then we took it home and started to decorate it. Dad put on Bing Crosby’s Christmas record—the one with “Mele Kalikimaka” on it—but as he sat down on the couch and watched me put up the ornaments, it might as well have been silent. Each one seemed to carry the whole weight of our family and what had become of it. The bells I made in first grade, with glittered foil over egg cartons and unraveling red yarn to hang them by. The Play-Doh stars, the animals, the pinecones. My favorite, which is a glass angel with May’s name etched on it. I hung that in front.
When I was putting the tinsel on, Mom called. I heard Dad’s voice strained as he carried the phone into the other room to talk to her. Then he brought it to me.
Mom said it’s strange to see it sunny and still warm at Christmastime. She said the light is bright and clear in California. I tried to picture where she was at the ranch and imagined horses with sleigh bells running around a field of palm trees. It didn’t make any sense. I told her I thought maybe I’d bake moon cookies. I thought that might make her wish she was home, because she always baked them every Christmas. The powdered sugar sounds like pushing clouds through the sifter and sticks to the cookies when they’re hot. I remember stealing them off the cooling rack with May.
“That’s great, honey. The recipe is in the brown box.”
“I know.” Then I blurted out, “When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know, sweetie.” She sounded tense. “This is good for me, okay?”
I was just quiet. I guess Mom decided to change the subject. “Dad says that you have a boyfriend now?”
“Yeah.”
Her voice turned excited, like a gossipy girlfriend. “So, tell me! What’s his name?”
“Sky.”
“Is he cute?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you being careful, Laurel?”
“Yep.”
Mom sighed a long sigh. “I mailed some presents. They should get there tomorrow.”
“Okay, thanks.” Then I asked, “Have you been to the ocean?”
“Not yet,” Mom said. And then, “Merry Christmas, Laurel.”
“Merry Christmas, Mom,” I said, and I hung up the phone.
Yours,
Laurel
Dear River Phoenix,
Have you ever heard of luminarias? They are a tradition in New Mexico for Christmas Eve. You fill lunch-size paper bags with sand from the sandbox, or if you don’t have a sandbox, you get some from one of the sand banks that are in parking lots around town for the holidays. You set up the bags outside your house, put candles in, and pull the wicks up to a flame.
I think they are most beautiful at the cemetery, where people leave them on graves. I went there alone tonight to see the ocean of light, which makes the quiet so much quieter. Each bag in the night was made by someone’s hands. Left for someone that they loved.
I brought a luminaria for May and found a place to leave it under a tree. I wanted to do something to show that she’s still glowing. We cremated her body. That feels so strange to say. We haven’t scattered the ash. I don’t want to see it. Honestly, it still feels sometimes like I’ll wake up one day and there she’ll be. That night plays in the back of my head like a movie where everything is out of focus on the screen so you can’t see what’s happening. The road races by. The river rushes on. I try to turn down the volume and just focus on the ocean of light.