Patricia Flaherty Pagan
TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY
Before she throws my father’s Christmas stocking into the fireplace, Siobhan brings it out to the porch to show it to us.
“I dreamt his cruise ship exploded. Dad drowned,” she says. She flails her hands, and the red stocking dances like flames.
Neve’s face darkens. She worries at the pink mittens in her lap.
“He’ll be back,” I say. I can see my breath. The air shudders. Snow begins to fall.
◊
Mom sings “Joy to The World” and “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” at Grandma’s aging piano. Neve sings along. Their voices scatter the clawed quiet that’s filled the house since Dad left his key and eighty dollars on the table.
Bills are stacked on the counter next to the tan phone sleeping in its cradle. I call my friends, the twins, who pass their receiver between them, giggling. I pretend not to see that the mortgage payment is due.
Siobhan calls me upstairs to see which of the dresses in the back of her closet will fit me. I cross my fingers that she has outgrown the green one with the red bow. When I come back downstairs to model it, my mom claps.
“Gorgeous!” Neve says.
“Remember when you girls were little, and Grandma flew in with those three matching red dresses with the green trim? She lugged them all the way from Halifax. They took up half her suitcase, bless her soul. Remember?”
“Sure,” I lie. All I remember about Grandma is that she smelled like the perfume counter at the mall, and she gave us bullseye caramels from her big, red purse.
“You all looked beautiful in those, and you look beautiful in this, dear,” Mom says. “You’ll be the prettiest girl at midnight mass.” She straightens the skirt of my new, old dress.
◊
Neve races down the creaky stairs. Santa leaves me The Clue in the Diary, a Nancy Drew mystery about a burning mansion. He wraps one eye shadow palette in last year’s snowman paper for Siobhan. We all smile as Neve holds up an Easy Bake Oven like a trophy.
“Santa got it!” she squeals. “I love it so much!”
◊
On New Year’s Eve, we drink sparkling cider and nibble on the tiny fudge brownies Neve burned in her oven. We watch the girl from Happy Days interview singers in Times Square on TV. Dick Clark makes jokes, and Mom half smiles. I try to stay up late enough to see Blondie.
Dad does not call. Joy and dread wrap themselves around my sisters and me like shawls.
Just before the ball drops, we hear fireworks. We rush out onto the porch in our Holly Hobbie pajamas to see. Half asleep on the couch, my mother faintly protests.
Pop! Pop! Swirls of blue and red erupt over the Little League Park a few blocks away. We shiver. Cold wind nips at our ankles.
“It’s the new year,” Neve says.
My sisters and I hold hands.
Patricia Flaherty Pagan lives in a brown house near the sea with her family and her three mischievous rescue cats. She is the award-winning author of Trail Ways Pilgrims and Enduring Spirit: Stories. She has edited several collections of fiction and poetry by women writers, including Eve’s Requiem: Tales of Women, Mystery and Horror. Find her on Instagram @PatFlahertyPaganAuthor. Learn more about her fiction and poetry at her website.
Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #44.
Submit to Cleaver!
