Holiday cards. Holiday cards. Motherfucking holiday cards. She feels like a fool in the store even as she picks them up; she feels guilty with them in her hands, like someone is going to look over her shoulder and see the glittery font and cheery paper and know, just know that she's an imposter.
The imposter paranoia seems to be a theme these days, but she's wearing dangly earrings and her sweater is fluffy and her hair is done—she actually woke up this morning and did it—so she figures, what the hell. Holiday cards it is.
She tells her therapist about the purchase and he looks at her crookedly.
"Are you excited about them?"
"I don't know."
"Have you ever bought holiday cards before?"
"No." This is not a lie.
"Are you..." he stops, rephrases. "Do you think you bought them because you're happy with where your life is now, and that that's something you want to share?"
Her legs suddenly feel like sausages inside too-tight casings, i.e. black stockings. She wants to be wearing pants. She wants to be wearing her boots. She wants her hair to be in a ponytail. She misses her blouses, as plain as they were. She thinks she's happy, so she nods. That's perfectly logical. There is no reason, besides the obvious couple of reasons, besides that whole thing with Lewis that she's really not going to think about today, that she should not be happy. She should be overflowing. If she could sing, she should probably be doing it. When she steps outside, there is every heavy obligation to twirl in joyous, giddy circles.
"Yeah," she says quietly. "I think—Of course I'm happy. It's just... it's weird to..."
"To what?"
He's so nice. This guy is so nice and encouraging and willing to let her steep in comfortable, comfortable bullshit for a while longer. Happy holidays.
"To want to share it," she affirms, because it's true.
He asks, "Have you ever wanted to share your happiness with anyone before? Or share the happiness you feel with someone with everyone else?"
"I, um. Not like this." I've never been happy before. I'm married to suffering. I thought vulnerability was love for a really long time but now I have my shit together.
"What did Brian say about the cards?"
She smiles, kind of inwardly. "Asked who we were gonna send them to, asked when the hell I'd have the time to fill 'em out. But he was... happy. Didn't find them quite as revolutionary as I did."
"Who are you going to send them to?"
She shrugs. "Maybe everyone. Maybe no one. Maybe it was just... the notion."
"The idea that you could send them."
"Yes."
"Because you're happy."
"Yes."
He smiles, and she thinks the guy most be so goddamned tired. "I'm glad for you, Olivia."
She nods, hikes her skirt down as she stands up to go.
She is so, so fucked up.
X
Seasons greetings! Thinking of you, Olivia and Brian
Seasons greetings! -Olivia Benson
Seasons greetings! Sincerely, Liv and Brian
Seasons greetings! Olivia Benson, Brian Cassidy
Seasons greetings! Yes I was held captive, tortured, and sexually assaulted by a serial rapist and murderer for a period of four days this summer, but you know what, water under the bridge, nothing a little kale juice can't fix. x- Olivia
She feels like this would be less weird if she had a child or more than six friends. The card is blue with silver snowflakes across it, perfect and vague and non-denominational. It's inclusive, and she figures that this is what normal, barren couples must send out during the wintertime. We're on our third round of In Vitro and Paul gained 30 pounds since the summer, but you get a silver star for not asking us about it. She figures that it's supposed to feel forced, so she sticks to first names, Olivia and Brian, and decides that anyone confused can check the return address for confirmation.
She writes one to Calvin and writes a longer note on the inside. Something like, Call me immediately, you adorable little bugger, because I miss you and I love you, and I need you to come interrogate my significant other. She writes another to Maria Recinos, who sends her cookies every year. A third goes to Jeannie Kerns, another to Sarah Walsh. She thinks, These are like business cards.
She'll send one to Amanda, to Nick, to Fin, to Don, to John, despite his inevitable response phone call to mock her, our little girl's gone soft or something. One to the therapist. He's a nice guy.
She wonders if people send holiday cards out of spite ever, to say Look how happy I am, or Thanks a lot for the phone call, you ass, I'm glad our twelve years meant so much to you, or I don't even give a fuck what you're doing except that I think about you every single minute, but I genuinely hope you and your wife and your kids are as happy as clams.
She does. She hopes he's happy. She feels happy, here in her new apartment with her new kitchen and gifted wine glasses, almost like wedding presents, and she feels settled. Her life in and of itself is happy, objectively speaking, and she's comfortable with that. She wants him to know. She wants it maybe a little because she wants him to see that she can be okay—be good—without him. But mostly she wants him to know because she thinks he'd be proud. She thinks he'd be happy that she was the organized, relaxed kind of person that sent out greeting cards at Christmastime.
She addresses one to his house in Queens. Maybe once she knows he's seen the return address, she'll stop having that nightmare where he comes to get her, to find her on W. 89th, but all that's left of her is gone so he stays out of her life by default.
She has a lot of dreams like that, and she takes something to sleep now because her anxiety dreams kept getting the sheets sweaty, and that's disgusting.
X
She is admiring her Christmas tree when the phone rings. The tree is giant—they had to cut a bit off the top to make it fit into the apartment with room enough for the star—and she can't name a single thing in this world that she's ever loved more. Brian made a biggish deal out of the fact that this was her first real Christmas tree (she'd had a fake one until she was twelve or thirteen, and then none went up at all) and she liked it. She liked it when he kissed her for reminding him to put the lights on before the ornaments, when he told her to lay down on the floor below it and look up through the branches, etc. etc. She likes that they drink eggnog—Brian doesn't actually like eggnog, but he sips his cup slowly and watches her drink it—and that they are so, so cliché. The thought dances through her brain like the goddamn sugarplum fairy. She likes it.
"This is Olivia," she says when she answers her cell phone, and for a second she's repelled. She's never answered the phone that way in her life, let alone in the past two decades. This is Olivia. What is she, twelve?
"Hi Olivia," says the voice across the line. She doesn't recognize it immediately— "This is, uh, Kathy. Kathy Stabler." —and she finds that considerably more horrifying than if she had. Her Christmas tree suddenly looks like an ominous rainbow giant.
"Kathy," she hears herself saying. "What um, what a surprise."
The giant is trying to eat the apartment. It's getting closer.
"I know. I'm sorry you didn't recognize the number, we got rid of the landline last summer—"
It might fall over. It might chew her face off, what with all those sharp glass pieces. She should probably run.
"That's fine. I'm glad to hear from you." She does not know if this is a lie.
She imagines the blonde woman standing in her kitchen, hip leaning against the counter. When she imagines Kathy she usually thinks of Eli nearby, bouncing in his high chair or crawling or cooing over blocks, but the kid is probably like seven by now.
"It was nice to hear from you too, Olivia." Oh, fuck. The cards. Hadn't that been valiant. "Listen, that's actually just what I was calling to talk to you about. Your card was so sweet, and it was so nice to hear that you were doing well, especially given— especially since the kids hadn't heard from you in so long."
Nice save, Kathy.
"They're all doing okay?" she asks, still wondering what the hell this woman wants from her. She's already gotten the grand prize, hasn't she?
As soon as the thought flies through her mind, she wishes she'd bitten it back. She wishes it had never dug itself into fruition.
She's happy. I'm happy. Fuck.
"Yes. Yeah. They're, um— sweetie, don't eat that, you know dinner's on the stove— sorry, Eli's trouble today. They're all great. Maureen's in Brooklyn and I think Kathleen wants to move closer to her, she's at home for now, and the twins, I mean... college, they're almost done, and they're excited to be in the real world."
"Who wouldn't be?" She thinks she sounds contrived. She bets Kathy can see how thin her voice is, how empty her grin is, from an entire borough away.
There's a pause. "Look, Olivia," Kathy says, kind of quietly. "I was so glad to hear from you. I was so happy to know that you're happy. But, um. Elliot— I'm sorry. I don't know how to say this. It was probably just an oversight, but I wanted to be sure. You stuck Elliot's name in with ours on your card, and I'm sure you sent another one to him anyway, but— "
"Hm?" She wonders if the floor can actually carry the weight of her sofa. She wonders if it would hurt if she fell through, couch and all, all the way into the basement.
"Our card, the one we got from you in the mail. It was addressed to the seven of us."
And?
"Yeah, I... yes." Her voice isn't working. She feels like somebody froze her larynx. She feels like somebody is strangling her from behind and suddenly the apartment is too hot, the fabric of her leggings is itchy, the lights on tree look ridiculous and are probably hiking up her bill—
Kathy's voice breaks the long silence. "You don't know, do you?" Her voice does not rise at the end. It is more of a statement than a question, more an assessment of her incompetence than an inquiry.
"Know what?" She sounds five, but decides it must be worse. She sounds twenty-five. I'm a good cop, Elliot. I just need to snuggle with you for a while, and maybe have some applesauce.
"Olivia," Kathy says, and even if she was a perfect stranger, she thinks you'd still know that she was a mother. Olivia considers vomiting but instead just makes a throat noise. "Olivia," she says again. "Elliot and I... our divorce was finalized last February. We've been separated since last summer. He, um. He lives in Manhattan now, in the village."
If she could breathe, she'd say something like, Well isn't he really fucking trendy? But she can't breathe, and instead says nothing at all.
