Damn, we loved Christmas back then. Neither of us was ever disappointed after all the build up and anticipation. And Christmas night was the best-no Midnight Mass to attend, flannel pajamas instead of my bow tie and her tights, no limit on the number of Christmas cookies we could stuff in our mouths. Mama let us stay up until we were exhausted and longed for our beds, both of us already counting the days until Christmas rolled around again.
Her own kids could barely summon enough enthusiasm to crawl out of bed on Christmas morning. Michael, the oldest, had to be threatened with bodily injury to tear himself away from messaging his friends long enough to come to the table. Jennifer and Dustin rolled their eyes and sighed at every comment or question, mimicking the bratty “tween” queens of the Disney Channel. The only real pleasure the three of them seemed to get was taunting their father, a combustible sort like our old man, but without his redeeming qualities of fidelity and reliability. I suspect the rock he presented my sister on Christmas Eve is reparation for his latest flight attendant or Pilates instructor. Family honor says I should hate him, but he’s a nice guy despite his philandering and occasional outbursts, unimpressed by his own Olympian status, someone to watch hoops with, arguing over who’s the best point guard in the ACC while we ignore Regina’s battle with her surly brood over the ridiculous “festive” holiday sweaters she bought them to wear for the video she wants of our happy Christmas dinner.
“These kids are too goddamn spoiled to appreciate anything,” she complained last night. “Do you remember how you’d light up every time I gave you a pile of damn comic books on Christmas morning?”
Yeah, I do. What shocked me was that she did too.
The tension headache I’d been nursing for days started to fade as their SUV backed down the driveway. We got through the holiday, but only after endless hours of vigilance, waiting for Regina to bite through the tip of her tongue and violate the unspoken Nocera Family Agreement to rewrite history, erase the past, and expunge any trace of a major character from the story: Have you heard from Alice? Alice? Alice who? I don’t know any Alice. You must have me confused with somebody else. Wonder of wonders, the moment never arrived, thwarted, no doubt, by my mother’s steely gaze each time she saw temptation flicker across her daughter’s face. I don’t know what you were so worried about. I told you I wouldn’t bring it up, I overheard Regina say as the SUV pulled away.
My mother takes a deep breath, fortifying herself for the afternoon ahead. I ask her if she really wants to go. Of course, she says. She’s been looking forward to this all week.
“This” is the farewell reception for the bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte. On January first, he’s being retired to a community for elderly prelates in New Mexico.
Maybe the forecasters are right. In just the few minutes since we’ve come downstairs, the sun has disappeared and the daylight has turned dishwater gray. The noisy winter birds have gone into hiding. The neighbor’s cat streaks across the driveway, headed home to wait out the storm. My mother blesses herself as I back the car into the street.
I expect that she, like my sister and me, is desperately seeking a simple explanation for all the many ways her body is betraying her. She hopes all she needs is one good night’s uninterrupted sleep. Maybe all it will take is the right combination of vitamin pills. Maybe her eyeglass prescription needs to be adjusted. Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow she’ll spring out of bed, those heavy sacks of rocks she’s been carrying for too long now tossed aside somewhere along the highway of her dreams, and she’ll greet all the familiar little aches in her joints like old friends. My sister insinuates my “situation” is the reason our mother has taken up smoking after twenty years of abstinence. That’s easier than accepting the fact that she suspects it can’t hurt her anymore.
My mother and I drive in silence. We have to make a quick stop at the cemetery. I insist she stay in the car, that it’s too cold up on this bleak hill. I don’t want her to see that the grave wreath, locked in the trunk over a week ago, has wilted. My mother’s name and date of birth are already etched into the granite. The old man is biding his time, waiting for her to join him. The sky seems to brighten as we arrive at the bishop’s residence. Maybe the forecasters are wrong.
The door opens before we have a chance to ring. Only a bishop can get away with having an ancient black man in Gone with the Wind livery greet his guests. He welcomes my mother as if she were visiting royalty. Merry Christmas, Nathaniel, she says, was Santa good to you? Oh, the best, Miz Nocera, he chuckles, the very best. I’m dumbfounded she knows his name and that she is a familiar face here. I’m shocked by what I don’t know about her. We both have our secret lives, my mother and I.
Nudging my way to the punch bowl, I speculate there wouldn’t be a wealthy Catholic left in all of North Carolina if a bomb fell on this place…and then it hits me, hard.
Good God, why hadn’t I thought of it before I let a stranger spirit away our coats to the hidden recesses of this too-big house? A quick escape is out of the question now. Why hadn’t she thought of it before accepting my offer to drive her here? Maybe she had. I hate being suspicious of my mother. No, obviously it hadn’t occurred to her, otherwise she would have told me to stay home and relax in front of the tree and she would get a ride to the party with one of her cronies. She couldn’t have an agenda. This wasn’t a Saturday night dinner at the club where she could ever so genteelly force the truly disgusted or the downright amused or the blissfully unaware to acknowledge my ongoing existence. This was J. Curtis McDermott, Jr., the King of Unpainted Furniture himself. The largest donor to Catholic Charities in the entire state, certain to have received the coveted invitation, probably the first name on the list.
Two weeks ago, thumbing through the Christmas cards she’d received, I’d opened a reproduction of a Bellini Madonna and Child and was confronted by the printed salutation.
Season’s Greetings from the King of Unpainted Furniture
Curtis maintained two Christmas mailing lists, one for the recipients of Italian Masters religious scenarios, the other for those who were sent the Currier and Ives seculars. After all, the King explained, Tar Heel Heritage, the world’s largest manufacturer of unfinished pine furniture, can’t offend its Jewish friends, but we gotta remember that most of our Christian friends think, well, if it weren’t for Christ there wouldn’t be any goddamn Christmas anyway. Curtis’s staff could effortlessly spit out catalogues, spreadsheets, and quarterly statements; certainly they should have been competent enough to hit the DELETE button and purge my mother’s name from the Italian Masters mailing list.
This benign little outing is turning into a full-blown exercise in tactical maneuvers. The crowd looks harmless enough. A young man and woman, their first Christmas together as a married couple, giggle and spit hors d’oeuvres into paper napkins. An old man with hairy ears corners them to gloat over the American Civil Liberties Union’s failure to persuade the Mecklenburg County emergency judge to order the removal of the crèche from the entrance to City Hall. They feign interest, caring less about civil liberties and the Baby Jesus than in finding a trash can. A spinsterish woman in a Fair Isle sweater folds her arms and pretends to survey the cookie table, trying to make eye contact so she can strike up a conversation with me. A tired little girl in a velvet party dress skates across the hardwood floor on the soles of her patent leather Mary Janes. Braking with her toe, she looks up and asks me my name. Andy, I say, and ask hers to reinforce her lessons on good manners. Brandy, she answers. She must be the aftermath of an evening of one-hundred-proof induced lust, her name a commemoration, like winter babies named April or June. Our names rhyme, I say, making conversation. Whatever, she snorts, tossing her head.