Dinner is done, and all the presents have been opened. Dad sits on the floor beside me, stuffing wrapping paper into a big recycling bag, and chuckles.
"Once again, months to plan…"
"...and they open it all in fifteen minutes." Grandpa laughs from his chair. "It's the same thing every Christmas Eve."
I glance up at Dad and frown, momentarily distracted from organizing all my new nail polishes from him in the funky purple makeup box from Mom. Every year, Mom emails Dad a list of what we want, and he sets about getting it, dividing up the list between them. Which is cool because Dad can afford to get me 30 bottles of designer brand polish, but Mom can only afford the fancy box. But still, when they put their presents together, it works. The thing is, Phin and I don't care what the cost is or who got us what. I just always liked the idea that they figured it out together. It also saves Mom from hauling the stuff back and forth from New York. And some of our presents we keep at Dad's anyway.
"We tried to be slower this year."
He leans over and kisses the side of my head, then smiles. "That's okay. The thrill of the moment is all that matters."
"Thanks again for the LEGO Ferrari, Mom," Phin says as he stares at the beautiful red car on the front of the box. "This is going to be so cool to build tomorrow."
"You're welcome, sweetheart. I'm glad your father was able to find it." She smiles at Dad. "It's a popular model this year."
Mom is sitting on the couch with Piz, and his arm is slung around her shoulders and has been since they sat down, and I'm just so grateful that my back has been to them the entire time.
"We can have a race, Phin," I say. "Tomorrow, we can see if you can build your car before I finish building my Hogwarts tower."
He scoffs at me and points to the box. "Mine is more pieces and more complicated. That's not fair."
"Fine. What if I do both Harry Potter sets—the one Mom got me too—then we'll be more even?"
Phin crinkles his nose at me in his suspicious way. "Fine. But no cheating."
"How am I going to cheat? It's LEGO." I gasp and roll my eyes, and Mom laughs behind me.
"Why do you two need to make this a competition anyway?"
Grandpa snorts and I hear him mutter, "Pot...kettle," as we shrug in unison and look at Mom.
"I dunno," Phin answers. "More fun?"
"Well, your dad gets to referee this one, so whatever." She laughs and tosses up her hands, ignoring Grandpa. "Go for it."
"Thanks, Vee." Dad sighs and begins to make piles of our presents under the tree again.
"No problem," Mom says with a giggle.
This Christmas has been nice. Less quiet. Usually, there are silences we fill with talk about our presents and Dad and Mom address each other kindly, but not often, focusing on us instead. Tonight though, there was conversation and laughter from both Mom and Dad. It was relaxed and easy in a way it hasn't been before. Before this year, I could never have imagined it could be like this because we were so used to the way it's always been. It was happy enough so we never thought it could be happier . At least our parents could be in the same room together while divorced—a lot of other kids in my school couldn't even have their parents in the same gym for our holiday pageant. But while there was nothing particularly wrong with our Christmases before, this one's been so much better.
Grandpa stands, chuckling and shaking his head. "I'm just glad everyone enjoyed their gifts. Now that you're getting older, it's getting harder and harder to buy for you guys."
"I really like the set of original Nancy Drew books you got me, Grandpa." I smile. "I'm going to take them home with me and read one on the plane."
Ouch. Suddenly my heart hurts. I don't want to think about going back home. I mean, I don't normally like thinking about it, but this year, I REALLY don't want to go home. With Mom. And Stosh.
"You are most welcome. Those books were a favourite of your Mom's too when she was your age." He winks at her.
"If everyone's done giving their gifts, I still have one…" We all turn and look over at Stosh as he leans over and picks up a long red envelope with a bow on it from the side table. He hands it to Mom with a big grin. "This is for you, Veronica. Merry Christmas."
She shakes her head and smiles. "I thought we weren't buying each other gifts?"
"I had to. I mean, it's not really romantic or anything, but it's something I thought you could use. Something you needed."
Mom frowns a bit. She never needs anything. Trust me. If something comes up, Mom handles it. That's how it works.
She sighs and opens the envelope, pulling out what looks like a long coupon for something, and she looks at it, puzzled.
"You're always talking about how the hardest part of your day is making dinner for you and the kids because you're tired from work and don't particularly like to cook…." Stosh quickly explains. "This is two months of a meal plan delivery service. Everything you need for eight weeks of dinners brought to your door. So you don't have to think about it."
And that's when Mom smiles and presses the paper to her chest like he gave her an entire box of diamonds. Leaning over, she gives him a small kiss on the cheek, and I cringe as his blue and purple face smiles back at her.
"Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me," Mom murmurs, and he takes her hand.
"You're welcome. And in March, when my lease is up and I move in, we can share the work."
For a split second, I feel guilty. Maybe Phin was right. Maybe Mom was feeling alone and needed someone. That's why she said yes to Stosh's proposal. But then the guilt is pushed aside by the sadness of having Stosh in my home, every day, for the rest of my life, and NOT my Dad.
I turn back to my pile of nail-polish to find Dad quietly sliding them into place in the box, and my heart hurts more, seeing him avoid looking at Mom. Reaching over, I pull the sparkly black one out of the case and force a smile.
"This one's my favourite, Dad. Thanks for picking it."
"I would say, no problem, but the fact that my only daughter is old enough to want makeup and nail polish did make me a little melancholy about where the time has gone."
I put the polish back and crawl over to him, and he opens his arms when I put myself in his lap. Dad wraps his arms around me and kisses my forehead, and instantly my hurting heart stops hurting.
"Don't worry, Dad. I'll still be your little girl for a while. I'm not going to stop asking for LEGO until I'm at least sixteen."
"Yeah, but you definitely won't fit on my lap then." Dad laughs and begins to rock me, pressing his forehead to mine. "And Uncle Dick just spent over a thousand dollars on LEGO for himself this year when we went shopping for you guys, so I think you're good to ask for that as a gift for a while, too."
"Speaking of children…" Grandpa laughs.
He lifts two shoeboxes off the top of his low bookshelves, walks carefully back through the chaos of the floor, and crouches, placing the boxes on the coffee table. I crawl off Dad's lap and scoot over to Grandpa, and Phin joins him on his other side.
"What are those, Grandpa?" Phin asks.
"These?" Grandpa looks between us and grins. "These are a historical record of your lives."
"In shoeboxes?" Phin laughs.
Grandpa lifts the lid to one, and we see a picture of ourselves, when we were little, at the zoo. Phin is in an orange shirt with bright orange shorts, and I'm in a hot-pink dress and bright pink sneakers. Dad is in between us, smiling for the camera in front of the monkey exhibit.
"It's us!" I cry and grab the picture from the top.
I can't take my eyes off us. I remember exactly when this was. We were five, and it was the summer, and the same year Dad taught us to ride our bikes, with Uncle D in the driveway, and you can see my scraped knees from when I wiped out.
Grandpa takes out a small stack of pictures and starts to fan them out on the coffee table, and Mom moves away from Stosh, closer to the coffee table to see them.
"After we visited the zoo this year, I went through my boxes and found all the pictures of the outfits your Dad dressed you in over the years." Grandpa reaches behind me, and hands the picture to Dad. "You were always colourful kids. And this proves it."
Mom turns some of the pictures towards her and frowns at them in this weird way, like she's upset, but I can't understand why. I see Grandpa look at her, but he ignores her discomfort and starts pulling out even more pictures of us at the zoo.
"This is my favourite," he says and holds it up so Phin and I can see.
It's a picture of Dad and Grandpa. I'm in Dad's arms, and Phin is in Grandpa's. We look super young, and Dad has stubble on his face and looks so tired, but he's grinning at the camera, and so is Grandpa. I'm in pink overalls, and Phin is in blue ones.
"That was the first summer your father had you out here by yourselves," Grandpa explains softly. "You were three years old. When he got off the plane from collecting you from New York, I was waiting for him, and I drove you to the house he was renting." He sighs and smiles. "And I decided to stay and help with you both. Well, you both put us through the wringer that night—crying because you missed your mother and everything was so new and strange—so I said the next morning, let's drive to the zoo. I thought that you would sleep on the drive and in the strollers while we walked. When we got there, you were so excited to see the animals you forgot all your sadness, and we just had fun all together." He passes the photo back to Dad. "See, son, I told you they'd grow out of it."
Dad nods at me and looks at the photo, shaking his head. "At the time, I was sure they wouldn't —that you guys would cry and cry the entire summer, and I would end up doing the same."
"But you adapted." Grandpa glances at Mom and then down at the shoe box. "We all adapted."
I can't stop looking at Mom. Her face has gone blank, frozen as if all her emotions have left her, and she's just staring at the photos on the table like they're her work and not pictures of us.
"What's in this one, Grandpa?" Phin asks and pulls the top off the other box.
"Ah. Those are special ones. They're your baby pictures."
I scoot around Grandpa and get on the other side of Phin, my eyes wide as I look down into the box, seeing for the first time what life was like before New York. Phin pulls out the first picture from the top, and I'm mesmerized at the sight of Mom and Dad, each of them holding one of us, smiling like idiots at each other, on the front steps of some house.
And I can't help myself—I grab the box and dump it over the coffee table, spreading our lives out for us to see...for all of us to see.
There's a picture of Mom, big and round, with Dad's hand on her belly while he kisses the side of her head. Then, there's one of Dad, sleeping on the couch, with one of us on his chest. And one of Mom in a hospital bed, with both of us, and Dad sitting next to her, smiling down at us. And Dad on a blanket with Mom and us on the beach, and another of us all in the ocean, and then there's one of us in front of Amy's, and it's all so overwhelming to see all at once. It's crazy. Like looking into some else's life. But I know it's me. It's us.
Up until now, the few pictures Mom has of us as babies are just of us. Dad is gone. Edited from our lives. The ones he has of us never show Mom. But here, with Grandpa, we're all back together.
We're a family.
I look up at Mom as she looks down at our lives, spread out in front of her. Evidence. She's a lawyer. This is our evidence. She's smiling in the pictures. So is Dad. They were happy. Once upon a time, they were happy, and this is the evidence in front of the judge. She cannot deny it.
Mom pushes a few around, her eyes skimming them as they move until she lands on one and pulls it from the bottom of the pile, scattering the rest. And as she raises it, she laughs this weird little laugh and bites her lip.
"We were so young. Babies having babies," she whispers, and I see her blink back tears before steadying herself again and flips the picture towards us. "Your first Christmas…."
Mom and Dad are sitting in this very living room, on the floor by the tree. I'm in a little Santa dress on Dad's lap, and Phin is in a Santa suit on Mom's lap. There's wrapping paper all around us, and Mom and Dad are raising our arms up high over our heads, and we're laughing, and they're laughing.
But she's right. They look like babies themselves. Dad's cheeks are rounder than they are now, and his hair is thicker, and Mom's skin is smoother and pinker, and they look like they could only be a few years older than us. My brain does the math and I realize they must have been only nine years older than us now in the photo.
Grandpa gently takes the picture and nods. "You were, but you were both such natural parents. So quick to love your children with all your heart." Grandpa turns and hands the photo to Dad, who hesitates for a second before reaching for it. "Still are."
That's when Mom's attention turns towards Dad as he stares at our picture. When he realizes she's looking at him, he looks back, and his jaw twitches and his eyes get so….intense...and when I look at Mom, it's like she's about to burst into tears, right then and there. But instead, she stands and brushes past Stosh's legs, knocking some of the photos to the ground as she moves.
"I'll go set out dessert," she mutters before quickly disappearing through the dining-room door.
We're all frozen, staring at each other, not sure what to do when Stosh rises and nods to us.
"I'd better help her. Nice pictures."
It may sound nice, but the look he gives us is not nice. At all. In fact, he looks downright ticked off as he leaves.
My cheeks get hot, and I look back down at the happy pictures in front of us. Grandpa sighs, loud and long.
"It seems that I may have upset some people."
"You didn't upset us, Grandpa," Phin says. He's still pushing his hand through the pictures and doesn't even raise his head to look at us.
"Well, that's good," Grandpa chuckles and wraps his arm around Phin's shoulders, giving him a squeeze.
"You didn't upset me either," I lie, just a bit.
That's when I look back at Dad, still holding the pictures Grandpa handed him, and the look on his face makes it seem like he's been up all night for days, kind of like some of the pictures.
"Why'd you pull these out tonight, Keith?"
We're all quiet, and I can hear the small clinking of plates from the other room as Mom sets the table for dessert.
"To remind Veronica, if she's looking for a family, that she already has a perfect one, right here."
I mean, Grandpa isn't wrong. And if anything, he would know best what Mom's like, since he raised her.
Dad presses his lips together and shakes his head. "That's not fair, Keith."
"None of this is fair, Logan. Veronica leaving wasn't fair. And her showing up with a fiance that neither of us knew about wasn't fair either," Grandpa says, very calmly. Almost too calmly. "But you know Veronica, when it comes to dealing with her emotions, sometimes she likes to run away, rather than deal. I'm just reminding her that life wasn't always as terrible as she makes it out to be."
Oh. My. Gosh! Grandpa doesn't want Mom to marry Stosh either! This is big. Huge! Grandpa is Team "The Plan," and he doesn't even know about it! My insides want to jump out of my body and do a little dance on the floor. I'm so excited...but I have to hold it in.
Dad groans and reaches over, dropping the pictures on the table with the rest. "I made my peace with it. You should too."
"I can't, Logan." Grandpa looks at me and gives me a tight smile. "You have children. You know. Sometimes we need to protect them from their own worst enemy...themselves."
Okay. I don't get that. How is Mom her own worst enemy? That doesn't make any sense. Does that mean marrying Stosh may hurt her? Or she may hurt herself? I am legit so confused by all of this now.
He begins to collect up the photos, and Phin puts his hand down on them, stopping his cleaning. "Grandpa? Can we look through them some more? Please?"
"Tell you what...give me a chance to organize them better, and when I come over to your house on New Year's Day, I'll bring them with me. Okay?"
Phin is holding a photo in his hand, and he nods sadly at it. "Can I keep one right now, though?"
"Which one, Phin?" Dad asks, and Phin turns it around to show us.
It's a picture of all of us. Dad holds me on one hip and Phin on the other, and we're under the apple tree in Grandpa's back yard, and Mom is smiling at us, and her arm's around Dad's back and Phin and I are laughing, and we all look just so happy.
We could have been this. This is how our lives could have been. Could have stayed. If Mom didn't run away.
"Sure. You can keep that one," Grandpa says.
And I feel my lip start to quiver, and I bite it, hard, so it stops, and I snatch the first picture from the top of the pile, and I don't even know what it is, but I take it and stand.
"I want this one," I state and turn. "Gotta go to the bathroom. Save me cake!"
I hear Dad call my name as I run up the stairs to the second floor. My heart is pounding in my ears when I get to the bathroom, turn on the light, and lock the door behind me. I catch my breath as I stare at myself in the mirror, wide-eyed, trying not to cry.
That's when I look down at the picture I grabbed. It's of Mom and me, in matching blue sundresses, sitting on a blanket on the beach, playing. And she's so happy, and I'm so happy, and suddenly I'm glad and sad and mad all at the exact same time. Because I hate that she took us, and I hate that we were all happy, but I love her so much, and I know she loves me.
And then I go numb. Suddenly, I don't want to cry anymore. I'm not angry, either. It's like my brain is overloaded, and some sort of switch flipped, and I feel nothing at all.
I walk over to the toilet and flush it, then walk to the sink and run it, pretending to wash my hands. I get myself together. Shove the picture in my back pocket, and walk out of the bathroom, to go and have a piece of cake with my family.