Author's Note, 4-16-03: Not much to say, 'cept I'm moving and the semester's about to end, so I've got a crapload of stuff to do. I would like to have spent a little more time on this chapter, but it's already taken forever and I feel I should upload or else I'll just keep putting off school so I can finish the chapter. So here it is.

Chapter 13

NOEL

*

"Abby. Wake up, sweetie," my mother cooed, her voice sounding miles away but still too loud.

I crinkled up my face, not quite able to pry my gluey eyelids apart. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my head. "I'm sick. I don't wanna go to school," I grouched, rolling over so Maggie would stop jiggling my shoulder. She petted my hair and laughed, not getting the hint. Her early morning cheerfulness was irritating. I moaned and made all sorts of wordless complaints, but she was relentless.

"Are you going to sleep through Christmas?" she asked, lifting the pillow I'd used to block out the sun.

"Yes."

"All right. Suit yourself. Eric and I will just have to enjoy it without you."

The mention of my brother's name penetrated my groggy, clogged up brain. I rubbed the heels of my palms in my eyes, finally opening them into narrow slits. Blinking took effort. I had to squint at Maggie, bringing her into focus like she was a specimen I was examining under a microscope. She smiled at me, but it looked weary and didn't quite reach her eyes, repelled by the raccoon circles that underlined them. She looked older than I remembered, though still as beautiful. I sensed I'd aged some too.

"What time is it?"

"Almost 10."

Ten. I struggled with the number and what it stood for, turning it over in my mind until it didn't sound like a real word anymore. Ten little Indian boys. Ten lords a- leaping. I had a ten-year-old brother. Normally he'd be waking me up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, his face glowing brighter than the angel's on top of the tree. But not this year, because he was confined to a hospital bed and Dad was coming to get us. At ten.

"Oh crap," I said, rising up from my pillow so fast I had to put my hand to my head and make sure it hadn't been knocked off by a sledgehammer. Maggie touched my shoulder, concerned. On the other side of my pounding temples sketchy memories began to surface. They were diluted by frigid water the color of vomit and beige floor tiles, littered with misshapen hangers and beer bottles that had phallic necks, the labels peeled off and stuck inside - a personal touch Andy added to all the bottles he got his restless drum- playing fingers on. The murkiness didn't last long enough, though. I would have preferred to keep the worst details as vague as possible, but they were the most memorable instead.

"What's wrong?"

I noticed she'd put all the hangers away and shut the closet door. I was glad. "Dad's supposed to be at the hospital to get me and Eric at 10," I said warily, beginning to itch. I didn't even realize why until I scratched absentmindedly at the faded candy cane stripes crisscrossing up my arms, and Maggie's eyes got misty. She took my hand and stroked it when I let it fall onto the bed, playing with my fingers, lacing them with hers. They mingled so perfectly I could barely distinguish between us. Her colorless lips stamped a hasty kiss on the back of my hand, and she sniffed, a sharp resolution.

"We won't be too late if you hurry and get dressed." She drew back the bedclothes and patted my thigh to get me moving. "C'mon."

"Do you want me to talk to Dad?" I asked carefully, sliding my feet to the floor but remaining seated. It was as hurried as I was going to get right then. "I can go in first and tell him me and Eric aren't gonna stay with him, then you can come in after he leaves. If that's ok? I just-- I don't think it would be a good idea for you guys to get into an argument in the hospital, since-"

Maggie held up a non-threatening palm to silence me. "I'm not going to argue with your father, Abby. You and Eric can stay with him..." She forced, "As long as you like."

The seesaw my life was balanced on tipped in the opposite direction, sailing me through the air, up, up and away. Only, my seesaw didn't have a handlebar, and I knew eventually I'd come crashing back down. I stared at Maggie uncertainly, taking my cues from her on how to respond. She wasn't as tricky to handle when she was medicated, but sometimes I thought I knew her better manic. Her inconsistency was less complicated than her regular adult logic. And when she was, supposedly, fine it was harder for me to detect the subtle differences in her lies and truths.

"I re-packed the suitcases for you," she went on, filling the quiet. My charm bracelet was on the nightstand; she picked it up delicately, the chain draped against the backs of her fingers as she held it out to me. The tiny skeleton key swung freely at the very bottom, offering me a new life. "I found this on the floor. I wasn't sure where it came from."

"It's- it's mine." I'd packed the bracelet the night before, not trusting myself just yet to wear it permanently. Cautious as I was about some things, accessories wasn't one of them. I wasn't used to any kind of jewelry other than the flimsy homemade friendship bands girls at school passed around about as quick as it took the colored strings to come unraveled; or an occasional pair of earrings that were mostly worn to prevent the holes in my ears from closing up. "A Christmas present from Dad," I told her. She waited for me to take it, but I didn't. I didn't know why.

"Oh. It's pretty." Maggie lowered her head and hand at the same time. She batted the silvery-blue butterfly around with her forefinger, and I wondered if some kind of sixth sense or built-in radar had told her that charm was from my stepmother. I tried to remember if spiders were a predator of butterflies or vice versa.

"I don't want to go to Dad's house," I blurted suddenly. "Eric can go. I'll stay with you." It felt like severing body parts, this choosing between my brother and my mom; an either-or of which limb I could least afford to lose. How did you pick a thing like that? Without a leg you couldn't play kickball, without an arm you couldn't give good hugs. Something would always be missing, handicapping you in one way or another. But I didn't eeny-meeny-miny-mo the decision, hoping for the less painful outcome. I knew that Eric would be taken care of in our father's home, and I would wind up useless, the bossy big sister. It was with Maggie that I would have a purpose, a reason to go on being me. I'd gotten a sample the night before of how different I could become, and I didn't like it, resolved never to lose sight of myself that much again. A little nagging part of me kept on fearing that's who I actually was, though. Maybe I was just as much an actress as my mother. Maybe I only fooled myself into thinking I was a good person. I really wasn't sure.

Maggie gazed at me through shiny tears, the brown in her eyes almost a dull black, like her inky pupils had overflowed. She looked so lethargic, so spent, I thought about grabbing her lithium and sprinkling it down the sink - anything to get rid of the deadness that choked out her vivacity, her intensity for life that I hated and loved, damned and craved. "You belong with your father," she said and cut me off when I tried to disagree. "Abby, please. He can give you a better life than I can. He can make you happy."

"No, he can't." I shook my head vehemently. "He'll make Eric happy, but not me. I'm not like him. I don't belong there, I belong here with you. You said I'm yours, remember?"

She winced and worked her hand loose from mine, pinching at the bridge of her nose as if she had a headache or her sinuses were bothering her. "I shouldn't have said that. You're his as much as mine-"

"No!" I said.

"Stop this."

I shooed her away when she tried to pat my thigh again, moving on, pretending to be chipper. "I'm not leaving you," I vowed, putting some authority into it the way I did when her depression left me in charge. "If you make me go, I'll just come back." To prove my determination, I marched over to my suitcase and rooted through the clothes, rumpling everything, scattering most of it until the floor was cluttered with once-white bobby socks, too-big sweatshirts and threadbare cardigans, underwear, the one skirt I owned but never wore, and blue jeans sprawled out like unusual denim creatures that had been skinned and turned into rugs. It wasn't that different from the shambles my room was normally in, and it satisfied me to do it, even if it did seem desperate. I was desperate. I couldn't be recycled - Jimmy's secondhand kid he got because Maggie didn't want her anymore. Somebody had to love me, and more than anything I wanted it to be my mother. More than anything.

"Oh, you are so damn stubborn!" she complained, though the relieved sigh that followed told another story. It ended in a smile that might as well have been a thank-you but waned little by little until she dissolved into tears. I'd had her for a brief shining moment then lost her. One step forward, two steps back. It baffled me.

Maggie shielded her eyes with a trembling hand, her shoulders bouncing in a way that could have been mistaken for laughter. But Maggie's laughter was always open and loud, lilting around you, like a melody that got caught in the wind, not restrained and directed at the floor. Her spontaneous crying spurts weren't usually downplayed, either. No, I recognized this for what it was; genuine sorrow pouring out in an ashamed silence. This was how she cried when she didn't see me watching, when the pressures of life or kids or whatever it was that made so many people in the world unhappy got to be too much. I knew because it was how I cried into my pillow at night, choking back snotty, burning sobs until my throat and nose got congested, and cursing myself for every damned tear I let fall. Perhaps Maggie had passed it on to me, all that sadness, because she'd finally run out of room to contain it.

"Mom?" I had a childish urge to add the long forgotten M and Y to that word, but they stuck to my teeth, obstinate as saltwater taffy. I shifted my weight from one bare foot to the other, assessing the situation and feeling helpless to stop it. I knew what to do for fake tears, not real ones.

"Presents," Maggie whispered, balling her fist with my bracelet inside, her thin voice cracking, "I didn't buy any presents."

I should have expected as much, but it still shocked me. I'd told Eric she wouldn't forget our presents, and I must have fooled myself into believing it too. What did it take for me to stop hoping? To stop trusting? I didn't want to give up faith in Maggie, but every now and then I felt it being chiseled away, the all-knowing motherly idol being reduced to a chipped rock. That was fine for me; I'd outgrown needing an ideal mom or Christmas - but I wanted my brother to have both, or at least the illusion of both. Protecting him from our sometimes painful reality had become my mission, a comfort I'd been deprived of and was bent on exposing Eric to. I failed more often than not and kept on trying anyway. Maggie had gotten it right; I was damn stubborn.

"Here." I hastily stacked Eric's presents from biggest to smallest, a wrapping paper pyramid of Santas and stripes and Nativity scenes. Maggie didn't look up until I put them on the bed and a hardcover Choose Your Own Adventure book slid off the pile, into her lap. She wiped her cheeks, but a wayward tear pearled on her chin and dove straight for the swaddled little baby Jesus, drowning him in his paper manger. I watched as that tear absorbed into the wrapping, marring the smooth, holy surface, though probably not harming the tough binding underneath that was designed especially for whatever abuse rascally boys could dish out. It took all my self-control not to snatch the gift back so I could dab it dry.

"What are these?" she asked, stuffy-nosed.

"Things I bought for Eric." I said it fast before I could change my mind. "I earned the money on my own. Fair and square, nothing bad. I didn't know when you'd be back, so I thought, well-- just incase, y'know? So anyway, take them. You give them to him."

Maggie inhaled deeply, but it was broken into short pockets of air, like she couldn't take it all in at once, like she was a chugging engine not quite ready to start. "Oh, no, sweetie. You deserve to give them to him more than I do. It wouldn't be right." She held the book out to me, and God, how I wanted to take it! See, Eric, see what I got you? Don't let Mom get off scot-free. But I stared at Mary and Joseph and smudged baby Jesus, serene and haloed by divine light, and I could not do it.

"He'll be happier if he thinks they're from you," I said, my hands clasped behind me rather than in front as they usually were. "I don't want him to think you forgot about him or somethin'."

She looked wounded for a second, and I bit down sharply on my tongue, warning myself to choose better words. Saying stuff like that would discourage her, and that was a sure-fire way to get her off the medicine again. "I know you wouldn't forget about him, Mom. But he's little. He doesn't understand," I tried.

"No, I'd never forget him," she agreed, more to herself than me. Her eyes went glassy then, lost in some far away place, seeing things that were invisible to me. I waited, not knowing what for but seeking it anyhow. I seemed to lose my nerve after a minute, though, and decided to get dressed. Maggie caught the front of my shirt before I went anywhere, pulled me to her and plunked me down on her lap. I thought about Andy. "Or you," she said.

"Yeah. I know."

"Do you?" She searched my face for the answer; I kept it blank, unreadable. I didn't trust my voice or my eyes to lie for me, so I nuzzled my head against her shoulder where I wouldn't have to meet her discerning gaze. Maggie took another funny sounding breath and picked up a few lank strands of my hair like she might find the reassurance she needed knotted in there somewhere with the tangles I hadn't combed out after my shower.

"What would I do without my angel girl?"

It wasn't a question. She said that to me a lot, and occasionally I'd make a clever retort, but now I leaned into her and wished I was very small instead of stuck at the in-between stage where I was really too big for this type of cuddling yet young enough to want it. My mother easily regressed to when I was a four-year-old, though. She rocked me, patted my hip in a steady rhythm. Someday, I promised myself, if I had a daughter, I was going to hold her just like this.

"How should we celebrate Christmas? Any ideas? We'll do whatever you want," Maggie told me. She still had my charm bracelet, and I finally took it from her, palming it as skillfully as a magician performing sleight of hand. "I'll rob a bank if I have to."

I grinned and shifted in her embrace so that I could look up at her. "That sounds fun. Let's do that."

"You're rotten," she teased, scolding me with a kiss.

"Rotten to the core," I agreed.

We smiled at each other, sort of lopsided and awkwardly, the smiles of two people getting used to one another again. I had just about all I needed for Christmas.