Page 96 of Can We Skip to the Good Part?
Max’s eyes were on her, tracking. She reached for Ella, but Ella stepped aside to avoid the contact. “What are you doing? You’re leaving?”
“I am. I’ll let you get ready, and, honestly, I don’t think I have the fortitude to argue, play the victim, or sit by and watch with my hands folded in my lap while another person who is supposed to care about me puts me in the back seat of their life.”
“Please don’t think that’s what I’m doing. My relationship with my mother is this unique house of cards, and my family has been through a lot recently.”
“I get it. They’re lucky to have you.” She walked to Max and met her gaze with intention. “But I want someone who feels lucky to have me.”
“I do. God, Ella, please. Don’t walk away.” Max pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. “What can I do here?”
“I’m not walking away. But you have somewhere to be, and I need a little bit of space. I think we have conflicting goals and that’s a problem.”
Max didn’t argue, likely because what Ella said was true. It meant they had a very big problem on their hands, and Ella didn’t have the solution at the moment.
She moved silently around the room, picking up stray ribbon and wrapping paper and placing her possessions into a neat pile. The remnants of a beautiful morning now looked like rubble, debris reminiscent of her feelings in this moment. She hadn’t expected Max to bulldoze her heart, especially on Christmas, but she was flattened all the same.
Max was sitting on the arm of the couch when Ella made her way out of the bedroom, dressed for the day. “I hope you have a Merry Christmas, Max.” She kissed her cheek. “Hug your loved ones. Keep them close.”
“Ella,” Max said quietly.
But Ella didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
The smellof cinnamon and pine hit Max the second she stepped through the front door. It was thick with nostalgia and, in this moment, utterly unwelcome. It was Christmas, a season she adored. It was the kind of afternoon she looked forward to. Yet, somehow, she resented its presence now as something criticalthreatened to boil over from within, something brewing for far too long.
From further in the house, Bing Crosby was crooning about a white Christmas, and the hum of holiday cheer buzzed like static under Max’s skin. She wanted to scratch it away.
The foyer looked precisely the same as it had since she was a kid, with pine garland draped over the staircase banister, a plate on the entry table with peanut brittle no one ever got around to eating, and her mother’s porcelain nativity scene arranged with obsessive precision just next to it. The baby Jesus, she noticed, had been turned ever so slightly to face the door, like he was sizing her up. “Stop it, Jesus.”
“Max! There you are. Merry, merry Christmas, sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice floated in from the kitchen, sweetened with performative delight. “You’re late.”
Max shrugged out of her coat and tried to shrug off the ache in her chest with it. Her stomach was still knotted, her thoughts stuck on the conversation she couldn’t stop replaying. The pain in Ella’s eyes caused by Max’s own stubborn habits haunted her. The protective fence she’d erected around her life and herself wasn’t retired after all. Who knew?
She hadn’t meant for the holiday to start with hurt feelings. But here she was. Life without Ella made no sense, and now there was a definite possibility she’d lost her for good. Her own damn fault. No more. Something had to give.
“Merry Christmas,” she called out flatly, her voice swallowed by the crackle of the fireplace and the distant sound of her dad cursing, probably tangled in twinkly party lights.
“Be right there,” he yelled. “Ho, ho, ho!”
Her mother appeared around the corner, clad in a festive sweater featuring a sequined reindeer. Her lipstick was already perfect, and her hair, slightly thinner from treatment, wassmoothed into place. “Just you?” she asked, eyebrows lifting with nonchalance.
Max forced a tight smile. “Yeah. Just me.”
A pause. Her mother’s smile didn’t shift, but Max could feel the satisfaction radiating off her like heat from the oven. She’d won without having to lift a finger.
“Of course,” she said. “We’ll have a great morning with the rest of the family. They’ll be here any minute. Do you want to fix up? Freshen your lips?”
“I don’t. No.”
“Very well.” Her mother kissed her cheek and fluttered away to one of her many last-minute tasks. She’d regained her strength in spades since her hospitalization, on a new protocol that seemed much more targeted to her body. They’d be sharing a late lunch in the formal dining room, which meant there were many finishing touches to attend to, and Max, as always, would be expected to assist.
She exhaled slowly. She was here. She was home. And she already wanted to leave.
With a deep breath, she headed into the kitchen, encountering her father in the entryway. He pulled her in for a hug and placed a kiss on top of her head. “Merry Christmas, M.”
“Merry Christmas, Daddy.” She tried to brighten for him. The success was debatable.
“How’s Ellen doing?”
She followed him into the kitchen. “It’s Ella. She’s not having the best time. Her family stood her up for Christmas.” She accepted the basket her mother handed her and automatically began to fill it with the warm rolls cooling on the sheet. They had a silent shorthand in the kitchen after so many of these family events.
