“Oh, I wouldn’t want to intrude on your Christmas Eve family time,” he said, glancing up from his camera, where he’d been replaying some of the day’s footage for Gracie to see.
“Does your family go to church, too?” Gracie asked, licking a few stray sugar crystals from her thumb.
“Yeah, but not until much later. Midnight mass. It’s a tradition in my family.”
“Weren’t you ever worried that Santa would come while you were still at church?”
Jesse put the camera down on the kitchen table and looked over at me, fielding the question in my direction. Gracie was just on the outer cusp of no longer believing—or maybe she had stopped believing but wasn’t ready to admit to it, not yet, just in case that would mean fewer presents under the tree.
“Santa knows to come late enough,” I said, ducking my head below the table as I pretended to tighten my bootlace. I didn’t want Gracie, the human lie detector, to spot my giveaway “squiggly” eyebrows, as she’d put it. “He knows when everyone is tucked in their beds and fast asleep. All part of the Christmas magic.”
Gracie nodded, content with that answer. “So will you come with us then, Jesse? Please? If you don’t have to go anywhere until midnight?”
“Gracie.” I sighed, squinting at her. My nerves were wound too tightly to be patient. “Don’t pressure Jesse. He probably wants to be with his family for Christmas Eve.”
“Well, I’d be happy to go,” he said, his eyes still on me. “As long as that’s okay with you and your parents.”
“Oh,” I said, hoping my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. The room was suddenly ten degrees too warm for the scarf that I’d wrapped around the top of my chunky black sweater dress. “Of course you’re welcome to come with us. I didn’t know you’d want to come along, or I would have asked sooner.”
“Awesome. Then I accept the invite.” Jesse smiled and turned back to the camera.
I’d always loved the Christmas Eve service, but I was anxious about tonight. I hadn’t been to my church in months now, and I didn’t know how everyone would react to my being there. My parents had assured me it was fine, and regardless, I couldn’t imagine not being there, with them, for the first time in eighteen years. But I felt better knowing that Jesse would be there, too. I felt even more secure.
Fifteen minutes later we were all bundled in our thickest, puffiest jackets and piled into the minivan: Gracie, my mom, and Jesse in the back, me in the hallowed passenger seat next to my dad because it required the least amount of squeezing and squishing for my awkwardly round belly—which, according to my most recent visit with Dr. Keller, now carried my massive three-pounder of a baby. How the baby could still more than double in size in the next two months before delivery left me equal parts mystified and horrified.
My dad dropped us off at the front steps of the church, insisting that I not have to walk too far in the bitter cold. I opened my mouth to argue, but the look of genuine concern in his eyes made me stop myself. I nodded instead, stepping out onto the sidewalk as my mom took my arm and ushered me through the twinkling entrance lined with boughs of evergreen. I started to duck my head, screening my eyes from any open hostility—but then the homey piney smell washed over me, reminding me of everything that I loved about Christmas Eve. Even this Christmas Eve, which was so different from every one that had come before it—but still so similar to them, too. My family, my church, the same carols and the same familiar faces of people I’d known my entire life. But there was more this time. There was my baby, of course. There was Jesse. I liked to look at it that way—I had more than instead of less than. I had gained rather than lost.
So I kept my head up. I didn’t want to miss anything about this night.
As people passed, I smiled and waved along with my family, and while eyes maybe lingered on me for a few beats too long, no one seemed offended by my presence. We sat right in front of the altar in our family’s regular pew—or at least what had been my regular pew, too, before I’d stopped going every Sunday with the rest of them. Church was still, miraculously, a safe place for my parents. Church was about listening, singing, letting all the day-to-day worries and hopes go. It was about drifting to a better, more purposeful place. I envied them that kind of devotion, and that kind of certainty in an actual doctrine, a rulebook to play by. I had my beliefs centered on my baby—my own individual, tailor-made kind of faith—but that didn’t translate to a neat and orderly way to worship.
I couldn’t call myself a Christian, not anymore; that much I was certain of. And even though I would have previously considered myself a Christian, in my life before this baby, I’m not sure that it would have been accurate, looking back now. It had been a stamp without real meaning, a word I’d carried with me because of my parents and my upbringing—because it was expected of me—rather than a realization I’d come to on my own. If I’d never really thought about my beliefs, how could I have known? How could I have been classified as anything, really?
I certainly couldn’t give myself any kind of traditional label now. I just believed in the power of something beyond myself, something beyond the physical world of science and math and predictability. What did that make me? Was I the sole member of a radical new religion?
Aunt Vera and Uncle Teddy and the kids swept in, interrupting my thoughts with big, jolly Christmas hugs as they settled into the pew behind us. I’d last seem them at Thanksgiving, when both Vera and Teddy had locked me in a fierce hug the second they’d walked through the front door. I was their niece, they’d said, and they would always love me no matter what. Nothing was said after that. But nothing else needed to be said. Vera rested a hand on my shoulder now, and I squeezed it, silently thanking her for being there. They didn’t usually come to church, not even on Christmas Eve—but they were here tonight, and I had a feeling that I was the reason. The opening music started up, and I felt my mind and my body soften, the usually nonstop anxiety easing away. Tonight was about family and tradition and cozy carols by candlelight—everything else could wait.
I smiled up at Pastor Lewis during his readings from the Bible, the oh-so-familiar Gospel of Luke, and the sermon that sounded more or less identical to me every year. He ended the message with a few moments of silence, and then, as part of the Christmas Eve tradition, we all reached down for the miniature white candles placed at each of our seats. The lights overhead dimmed as ushers carried a lit candle to each pew, their flame passing down the line until every face in the room was lit from below, golden balls floating eerily in the shadows.
This was always my favorite part of the service by far, a moment that I looked forward to all year. This was Christmas. This was happiness—pure, simple, unconditional happiness. Standing shoulder to shoulder with my family, singing at the top of my lungs, knowing that Christmas morning was just around the corner.
The choir stood from their mounted pews behind the altar as the first few notes rose up from the piano. “Silent Night.” Just like always.
A small figure emerged from the dim corner of the pews, her head down as she edged slowly forward to stand ahead of the rest of the singers. As she stepped into the glow of the candlelight, I could see her face clearly.
Iris.
She was luminous against the darkness around her, her white hair glistening and her pale face like a moon hovering above the altar. Her green eyes landed on mine as she opened her lips and the first words poured out, fuller and richer than I could have ever imagined coming from her petite, fragile body.