Author's Note: Well, I wanted to get this one done by Christmas, but obviously that didn't happen. Better late than never, I guess. Hope you like it.
CHAPTER 1:
Blue Christmas
"Mom, are we getting a tree today?"
Eric devoured his last bite of toast and looked at me cross-eyed when I tried to signal for him to hush. He had already asked that question a million times, I could tell it was getting on Maggie's nerves. But when you're ten and Christmas is a week away, I guess you kinda start to wonder where the Christmas tree is. And the twinkle lights and the wreaths and the presents. Our apartment didn't look any different today than it did the rest of the year, but Eric and I could see the glow of our neighbor's blinking decorations flashing greens and reds and blues against the thin curtains that veiled our front room windows. Maggie could see it too and it drove her crazy. Lately her moods seemed to change just as quickly as it took the lights to blink on and off. That's why I wasn't worried much about a Christmas tree.
"I don't know, Eric," Maggie responded, her back turned to us.
I noticed she hadn't eaten any of the dry cereal she tossed into the trash before rinsing out her bowl. Not feeling very hungry either, I let my spoonful of milk and Cheerios dribble back into my bowl. The ring shaped pieces looked like little life preserves floating around in a sea of white. I guess the people they'd been thrown out to help had already drowned. When I pushed the bowl away it made a loud scraping noise against the table and Maggie jumped.
"Abigail, eat your breakfast."
I looked up at her. "It's soggy. I don't like it when it's soggy."
"You'll be hungry at school."
"I'll eat a big lunch."
She stared at me, exasperated, and I regretted evenopening my mouth. Mostly I just kept things to myself when she was having her "blue days."
My brother ignored the conversation and dug into my leftover cereal. When things were going good, Maggie and I would laugh and make jokes about how much he adored food. If he started to whine about being teased, Maggie made it all better just by ruffling his hair and saying a growing boy had to eat. And grown he had. Tall and gangly like our father, he only stood a few inches shorter than me. Everyone said I'd be small like Maggie.
"Phillip has a tree," Eric grumbled into his spoon. "His dad and him put it up the day after Thanksgiving."
Maggie groaned softly, shutting her eyes the way mothers always do when their kids bug them. I noticed our mom did it a lot. "Okay, Eric, we will get a tree today when you get home from school. Just please, stop asking me."
I tried to smile at him when he whispered an enthusiastic "Yes!" and gleefully swung his legs underneath the table, knocking against my shins. I envied his blindness to the warning signs Maggie was putting off. They had never shown up this close to Christmas. She usually had her highs around the holidays, like the year she woke me and Eric up at three in the morning to see the heavy snow fall that had turned the entire world white and magical over night. She said she had wished it that way for us, and when Eric, no more than seven at the time but old enough to know it was still too dark to be playing in the snow, asked if we could go sledding later that day, Maggie told us there was no sense in waiting.
Without hesitation we had bundled on a layer of pajamas, sweaters, snowsuits and bulky coats and followed her into the winter wonderland we were sure she had conjured up just for us. A giddy feeling - the kind you get when you know you're doing something bizarre and don't really care - spread through me that dark morning and, despite all my warm clothing, my skinny body shivered and tingled with uncontrollable excitement. We flew down hills at breakneck speed and when we got tired of that we danced in the snow and sang carols at the top of our lungs, not even stopping when someone turned a light on in their house and pulled the curtains back to glare at us. The three of us collapsed on the snow after a while and lay there sucking in the air that was so cold it made my lungs hurt. But I didn't complain. I just wanted to stay there forever with our breath - mine, Eric's and Maggie's - blowing little puff clouds that mixed together and disappeared before I could tell whose puff cloud belonged to who. I wanted to freeze Maggie up like the icicles on the trees and keep her as she was right at that moment, happy and holding me and Eric in her arms. But no matter how hard I prayed for it not to, the sun, with its power to transform icicles into mere puddles, still came out that morning.
"It's time for you kids to go to school," Maggie announced with relief. She handed Eric the lunch I had packed for him and kissed his ear. "Don't dawdle. I don't want anymore calls from your teacher saying you're showing up late for class."
"'k, Mom."
"Abby, be good." She always said that to me. Be good. I wanted to tell her that I was good; I didn't get into trouble in school, I didn't make the teachers close their eyes because they were annoyed. I just sat at my desk and minded my own business, plain and simple. Good.
"I will," I replied, walking my bowl/Eric's bowl to the sink and dumping the milk.
I helped my brother get his coat zipped and made sure he had his snow hat and gloves on, then I put on my own purple coat with the black gloves and hat that matched. Usually my coats and things were a neutral color that could be handed down to Eric when I outgrew them, but with him shooting up in leaps and bounds and me needing something that finally fit in with what the rest of the girls my age were wearing, Maggie had relented and bought me the purple coat. I loved it. And best of all, Judy Evans, the snottiest, most stuck-up girl in my class, had to beg her mother to go buy her one just like it.
I gave Maggie a quick kiss goodbye and left for school with my little brother. He was only in elementary school whereas I had already moved on to junior high, so we took different routes. Still, I liked to walk with him as far as I could each morning. We talked a lot and laughed during those times. He was especially talkative today, overjoyed that it was the last day of school until after Christmas.
"Do you think Dad will bring us presents this year?" Eric asked, making zigzag patterns with his footprints that reminded me of those "Family Circus" comic strips where the little boy runs around the neighborhood and tiny black footprints mark his winding path.
"I dunno. Maybe." I hadn't seen our father in months and I doubted it would be any different by Christmas. He had a new wife and family now. I knew I would be fine without him, but I wished he would at least pay a visit to Eric once in a while.
"Yeah, he forgot my birthday, but there's no way he could forget Christmas!" Hop, hop, hop, more footprints in the snow. "Do you think Mom bought all our presents yet?"
"I dunno. Maybe."
"Is that ALL you can say?" Eric ran a circle around me, trapping me inside his snow maze for a second as he stopped to look at me and swiped a glove under his runny nose.
"I dunno. Maybe." This time I grinned after I said it, and Eric rolled his eyes. He never thought my jokes were funny, especially since he considered himself the only true comedian in our family. I couldn't argue with him there. His sense of humor often rescued me and Maggie from our tension.
He dodged me when I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and tried to dry his leaky faucet of a nose. "Go to school with crusty nostrils and snail trails then," I warned, and it did the trick. He trudged towards me and fidgeted self-consciously while I wiped at his face. I made sure it was over before any of his friends could wander past to see Eric Wyczenski getting his nose cleaned by his big sister.
The subject changed to toys he wanted as we resumed walking, and when we reached the corner I had to turn on, Eric had already named enough toys for ten kids to enjoy on Christmas morning.
"Come straight home from school," I called, walking backwards so I could see my brother going in the opposite direction. He did the same so he could see me.
"Duh, I will. We're getting a tree! You better come straight home too." He imitated Maggie, making his voice high, "Don't dawdle!"
I laughed and turned to walk the normal way, keeping my head down against the wind and kicking up a spray of snow with my boots. My friend Howie sometimes met me at this spot so we could walk together, but he was nowhere to be seen today. I figured it was for the best, because I wasn't in a very cheerful disposition. I was thinking about a tree covered in blinking multicolored bulbs, the flashing shades matching each of Maggie's shifting moods. Yellow when she was happy, green for her jealousy and suspicion, red for her anger, and the haunting melancholy blue that swallowed her up in sadness.