Page 8 of War on Christmas

I’m surprised at the way my guts twist at her question. I’ve replayed my last night in Northview over and over so many times that I thought it had lost its sting. But the hurt is still lodged in my chest, like a pill I had to swallow without water.

I can still recall that night before I left for college with perfect clarity. Every single word: “I’m done supporting another man’s bastard.”(Notice a theme?) “Take all your shit with you tomorrow. Because you’re not coming back.” Every godawful expression: Gary, purple-faced with rage. My mom, clutching her bathrobe and sobbing. My initial reaction? Stupid, naïve kid that I was, I felt hope. I’d been so sure that if he forced her to choose between us, she’d pick me. She’d be out.Wewould be out.

I was wrong.

My mom didn’t like him kicking me out. I knew that much. But when I left for UW–Milwaukee the next morning, it was with the clear understanding I’d stay out of their lives for good. Sure, her face was red and puffy from crying all night, but she’d stood on that curb and waved goodbye.It’s been real, kid. Have a nice life.

“Seventeen years,” I answer. Freya starts, her eyes wide with surprise, and I fight down the urge to blush. Look, I know it wasn’t my fault, but there’s a shame in being rejected by your own mother that’s hard to kick, logical or not. I force my voice to stay light as I continue. “Gary kicked me out when I left for college. Thad never told you?”

She shakes her head. “That’s why you were never here for the holidays?” Her brows draw together, forming an adorable little V in her forehead. “I always assumed you were traveling or…I don’t know. With a girlfriend or something.”

“Nope.”

I keep my eyes on the road as I turn onto our street. I don’t like to think about those first Christmases on my own. The clumsy, blundering conversations with dorm friends: “Any chance I could crash at your place over break?” Their panicked responses: "For the whole month?!" Luckily, by my junior year, I’d figured out how to leverage the system. How to volunteer for odd jobs and projects that would keep me on campus year-round. I always could have stayed with Thad’s family, of course. However, the idea of being next door to my mom and Gary, but unable to go home, felt unbearable.

When I finished grad school and finally got a real job, I tried one final time to convince my mom to leave. My job at Andersen & Sons was good. I wasn’t going to be rich, but I could take care of us. That’s why I’d pursued architecture, even though part of me would’ve loved something more creative like art or graphic design. Architecture could provide security. Never having to wonder, ever again, if there’d be a couch for me to crash on. More importantly, I could finally get my mom out. So, I’d swallowed my pride, called her up, and begged her to come to Chicago with me.

She picked Gary, of course. Again.

My thoughts skitter away from that memory like it’s an open wound, too painful to touch even ten years later.

Instead, I focus on Freya. “Did Thad tell you he died?” I ask her.

She nods curtly as she, too, looks out the window. “It was like Christmas came early.”

I snort, not at all shocked by her honesty. Everybody else—neighbors, teachers, friends—turned a blind eye to Gary’s behavior. “It’s not like he’s hitting the boy,” I overheard so many times I lost count. But Freya? She had never hesitated to call it out. Because Freya, unlike everyone else in our Midwest-nice town, wasn’t afraid to look directly into the shadows. All those unseemly things that lesser humans turn their gaze away from…Freya stares that shit down.

And when youlivein the shadows? When your life doesn’t fit the sunshiny narrative everybody wants to see for a nice, athletic, book-smart kid? The one person who’s willing to acknowledge your reality, to stare at it unflinching, can feel like a lifeline.I’m not crazy. This is really happening, and it’s fucked up.

It’s why it hurt so fucking bad to lose her.

I clear my throat. “That was pretty much Thad’s response,” I say, dread settling heavy and hard in my stomach as we approach our block. “Well,” I shrug, “mine, too.”

We grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, a row of 1950s and ’60s ranches, simple and well-kept. My mom bought our house from her grandma, and it’s a boring gray box. One long rectangle with front door, two windows, and square garage door. No trees to add interest to the front yard. No gardens or even bushes to liven up the plainness of the property. Just grass and that ugly gray box of a house.

The Nilsen house, by comparison, is cute. Tan brick with a setback garage and a little porch protecting the front door. The birch tree we climbed as kids still stretches across the front yard, and the bushes lined up in front of the living room window glow with multicolored lights. (Mr. Nilsen always did get into holiday decorating. Every year, the day after Thanksgiving, you could find him on his ladder, stapling and cursing.) Long fingers of icicle lights trail from the eaves, and a projector shines on the white garage door, covering it in tiny, blue snowflakes.

I pull into their driveway and put the car in park, focusing on Freya’s face. She’s staring at her house with a pained expression, her forehead pinched. I need just one more minute before facing whatever’s waiting for me next door. I rack my brain for something,anything, to say that might keep me in her cool, steady presence a little longer.

“I play golf now,” I blurt out. She turns her dark gray eyes to me. This is different than the careful, perfunctory conversation that’s gotten us through the past two hours. This is a confession. “I hate it. The grass looks fake. The conversation with my boss feels fake. Pretending to enjoy swinging a big stick at a stupid little ball is fake. It’s like I’ve been trying so hard for so long to do the right things—make the safe choices—that now I don’t even know what’sreal.”

If I’m stunned at my outburst, I shouldn’t be. Freya pursues the truth ferociously, and while most people find that intimidating, I’ve always found it liberating. I might twist and bend myself to meet the expectations of coworkers and friends and lovers, but I’ve always been myself with her. She’s always had that effect on me.

I sit with the words that just spilled out of me, and for a second, I feel…free.

Freya stares at me, her expression giving away nothing. It rarely does.

“Sounds like something you should figure out,” she finally says, reaching for the door handle. Without thinking, I spring into action, jumping from the driver’s seat and jogging around the car to open her door and help grab her bags. When we have everything unpacked, we stand shoulder to shoulder in her driveway for a moment, our warm breath mingling as it freezes in the cold air. She glares at the blinking “Happy Holidays!” sign on the front door and mutters, “Welcome to hell.”

Seven

JEREMY

Istandatmyfront door, suitcase in hand, and debate whether I should knock. It’s my childhood home. The place I grew up. There are notches on my bedroom doorway tracking how much I grew each year.Knocking would be weird…right?Counterpoint: I haven’t set foot on this property since I was eighteen. George W. Bush was President. Donald Trump was just a reality TV star. Steve Irwin was still happily hunting crocodiles. A lot has changed.I should knock…right?

Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t come. I wish when I’d seen “Home” on the caller ID, I’d let it go to voicemail. I wish when she’d asked me to come back to Northview, I’d said no.

Because I’m afraid. I’m afraid of stepping into this house and feeling like a scared, helpless kid. I’m scared of seeing my mother’s face and feeling the sting of rejection all over again. Worst of all, I’m afraid of not being able to contain the anger I can feel simmering beneath the surface. I’m afraid of giving voice to every horrible, shameful thing I’m feeling and directing it at a woman who’s spent the past twenty years being made to feel small.

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