Story 9: Deirdre, in Xeriscape: Two Groups

This is Christmas with my parents: several presents from each to each, always beautiful, always something that the receiver mentioned months ago and the giver remembered. Reminding me why they’re such good doctors. Long ago I decided not to be one, ’cause who could compete with these two?

This is the meal I help prepare and clean up, like a good only daughter: Cornish hens, twice-baked potatoes, sweet potatoes with melted marshmallows, crescent rolls, green beans with bits of bacon, key lime pie. It’s our favorite. This is the aftermath of our early dinner: a little music, maybe a collection of arias. Me, lying on the floor, looking up at my parents in their chairs, chatting about college and friends, watching them read the paper. Almost completely quiet, except for footsteps crunching in the snow.

But this year, I think of another night. Two weeks ago. I convinced Josh and Jodi and Natalie to come to Evergreen with me to look at the lights. Lots of people put up lights, of course, but I just think they’re prettier in Evergreen. And this way my friends get to see my house, which is very impressive.

Muffled from head to toe, one hand cold and the other burned by hot cider, we wandered around my neighborhood. It was a long walk because the houses are spread out on the side of a hill, with mine at the top. Natalie surged from me and Jodi, arm in arm, to Josh, like a pool ball trying to escape the rack. And about that brightly dressed too. She began bouncing up and down ahead of us, sputtering, and just then trees netted in turquoise lights appeared around a curve in the road, framing her. For the first and only time, Natalie reminded me of a poem: “She floated, a blue blossom, over the street.” Jodi and I stopped to take it all in.

Usually Natalie inspires other emotions in me than poetry. But Christmas of our junior year will bring Natalie this: family, in the Midwest. Probably no snow. This year, a period of mourning for her uncle. Here, my family is quiet and triangular, balanced just as our house balances on the ridge. There, warmth, loud voices competing, and a door open, a window ajar, a cool absence. At moments like these, something like affection for another only child, but not what you’d call the spirit of the season.

Note: The quote is from "Sappho," by James Wright.

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