Christmas in the Time of Grief

Claire has died too close to Christmas.

This is what Alex has decided.

For the first time in a week, she’s woken by the sun cutting through the shutters in stripes, rather than Ella’s faint cries. The first five seconds of the day are normal, one suspended breath. It could be three years ago, waking up already slightly sticky in the heavy summer heat, texting Claire and making her drive them the three minute walk to the beach. It could be last Christmas Eve in New York, grey snow and her roommate talking to his mother obnoxiously loudly. It could be so many moments.

Except of course, it’s not. It’s none of those things. They are all over, and Claire is gone.

Time to breathe it in.

A plucked feather slowly floating to a stop, she is chosen by grief for another day, settling in her stomach and on her skin and behind her eyes. She lies there, swallows, tries the day on for size. Heavy, but not crushing, she decides. Maybe doable. She takes ten deep breaths.

It is December 24. It’s time to get the baby.

Ella is happy today, placid and sweet and easy. They go for a walk and it’s a Sydney day so perfect Alex can’t help but feel a moment of light in the healing sun. They eat a snack watching the waves, head back up the hill for Ella’s nap. Alex isn’t sure what she does in the afternoon quiet. Gemma asks if she wants company but she says no; today buzzes with the low thrum of too much already.

The minutes slip away in that treacly way most of them do; stubborn and slow and imperceptible until hours have passed and she’s gripped with the panic of lost time. She thinks of Claire almost always, because it’s impossible not to, living in her house and still surrounded by her things even though her commitment to terrible interior design was almost legendary; surrounded by Ella, her tiny carbon copy.

Not for the first time, she finds herself relieved when she hears Ella stir in the late afternoon, a distraction from oncoming inertia.

Her phone vibrates as she’s trying to convince Ella to eat a bowl of avocado yogurt for dinner.

how goes christmas preparations?

It’s Jake. She responds straight away. She’s not sure when she stopped playing the late-reply game. Probably about the same time she unexpectedly became a pseudo-parent. Priorities, or something.

Don’t know what you’re talking about. Never heard of it.

hmm thought it was some sort of holiday for your people? questionable man in a red suit? woman lies about being a virgin and accidentally starts a religion?

She smiles.

Doesn’t ring a bell.

cmon that was funny. you smiled

She laughs at that, thinks it’s the first time she has all day.

Didn't.

liar. anyway i’m about to order pizza. could order to yours if you feel like company?

You could order me a pizza independent of your company…kidding. I’m fine though. Thank you. You should go and do something fun.

i can help you wrap presents. it’s a skill of mine...

Don’t even have a present for you though. Be a bit of an awkward Christmas Eve.

thought you didn’t know what christmas was?

Ha. You win. I’m good though. Go be free. See you later this week

She turns back to Ella, who’s still eyeing off the spoon disdainfully. She reluctantly eats a mouthful.

“I know,” Alex agrees, “good girl.”

Her phone buzzes again.

blink twice if you do actually want me to come over.

She thinks about it, then replies with the eyes emoji and a crumpled face. She hopes he knows what that means. She’s not even sure she does.

Jake is unexpected, in all of this. They’d met two weeks after she’d officially taken custody of Ella; a month since Claire had died. Ella had woken up crying one night, wouldn’t settle, and when Alex had noticed a small rash on her elbow, she’d immediately assumed she was gravely ill and deliriously drove them to the hospital. Jake was the triage nurse that night, and didn’t so much as crack one smirk when he gently told her it was just a touch of eczema, and it was in fact normal for babies to both wake up crying and have a slight rash without being on the brink of death. How do you know that? she’d asked dumbly, and he’d smiled; I have a lot of siblings. Also, y’know, nursing school; and it was the first time someone had made fun of her since Claire had died, since all of this had happened. That’ll do it, I suppose, she’d said, and that had been that.

When the buzzer goes half an hour later, she rolls her eyes.

“Sorry, no one home,” she says loudly down the line. Jake’s laugh crackles back at her. She lets him up before he has to ask.

He reaches the top of the stairs with his hair a mess of loose curls, pizza in hand alongside a truly nightmarish roll of wrapping paper, adorned with tiny dancing Santas and HO HO HOs.

“That’s not very child friendly, you know,” she says, pointing at the paper, and she can hear the thinness in her own joke; her own voice. She hasn’t spoken to an adult all day, she realises.

Jake just smiles, wonderfully free of pity, but gentle. Always gentle. A thin tendril inside of her feels like something that isn’t grief, a stranger within.

It strikes her how comfortable Jake is here, all of a sudden. He sets about the living room easily, mostly wordlessly, babbling occasionally to Ella as Alex finishes feeding her, fiddling with the speaker until his phone connects, moving toys and books and other assorted junk from the floor so there’s space for them to sit. By the time Alex comes back from putting Ella down, he’s got a slice of pizza in one hand, his phone in the other, lazing back against the couch and sitting on a cushion.

“Pretty upsetting you haven’t already wrapped everything for me,” she says, looking almost despairingly at the pile of gifts in front of them as she sits down.

“Couldn’t let you miss all the fun,” he grins, picking up a novelty stuffed strawberry toy quite possibly larger than Ella herself, “besides, this is beyond my level of expertise.”

They start wrapping in comfortable silence, mostly managing to keep pizza grease away from the gifts. He’s wrapped five things in the time it’s taken her to finally finish the strawberry.

“So what does one do on Christmas Day, anyway?” he asks, “grand plans?”

“I’ve honestly tried to think about it as little as possible,” she says as she finishes a haphazard bow, “I mean, not in a Grinch way. Just, like. Everything. I’ll...we’ll go to my Mums for lunch, though. She’s in town.”

“You do sound ever so slightly Grinch-like,” he says, “isn’t the house meant to be filled with gingerbread, or something? Carols?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Name one carol.”

“Hey, Christmas isn’t my schtick. That’s unfair. Isn’t there some sort of bird in a pear tree situation?”

“Partridge,” she corrects, “partridge in a pear tree.”

“Do pears really grow on trees?” he wonders.

“How is your first question not what the fuck is a partridge?”

“Surely that’s not a real thing. But whatever. Point is, we gotta get some Christmas spirit in here.”

She thinks about arguing. Instead, she closes her eyes, rests her head on her knees against her chest. The breeze is cooling down, ever so slightly. She is so tired. Deep in her cartilage and ligaments and marrow, or whatever’s in the very middle of her, she’s tired there.

“Thank you,” she says, and tries not to wrinkle her face at the sincerity in her voice, or at the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby now floating between them.

Jake looks surprised, but his smile flashes; warm.

“What for?” he asks, “these raging tunes?”

Alex gestures around the room, for all of this, she means. It sits in her throat. “I don’t know,” she says finally, thumbing at the hair tie on her wrist, “just. For coming over. For being here. I’m sorry I didn’t get you a present.”

“You think I’m just here for the promise of a shit gift voucher?”

“Surely it’s the uplifting energy,” she says dryly.

“You don’t need to be uplifting,” he says, quiet, “it’s a hard day.”

She winds a piece of leftover ribbon around her fingers, and his hand comes to meet hers, gingerly. Unexpectedly. He doesn’t say anything. It’s new, but it’s simple. Everything with him feels simple. Just his fingers around hers.

“Yeah. Turns out there are a lot of them, though.” She swallows. “I keep thinking about how much I loved Christmas as a kid. Y’know, it was so easy. And Ella she’ll just...it’ll always be sad, for her. She’ll never get that.”

“Yes she will. She’ll have you. You’re a better option than you think.”

“I can’t even wrap a strawberry competently,” she says, and if her voice sounds thick, he doesn’t react. She clears her throat. “Fuck, I wish…”

She trails off.

“Wish what?”

She huffs a laugh, opens her eyes, runs a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. The usual, I guess. I wish Claire was here. I wish Ella had a better excuse for a substitute parent. Same shit. Christmas remix edition. Sorry,” she blinks, “sorry, this is depressing.”

“It’s incredibly depressing. It’s allowed to be, though. You don’t have to apologise for talking about it.”

“Yeah, okay, Brené, thanks.”

“Hey! I’m trying to be serious.”

“I know. And I meant it, y’know. Thank you.” She pauses. “Unfortunately though, the rest of these aren’t going to wrap themselves.”

“You only want me for my craft,” he says mournfully.

“And your pizza,” she says, “so many great qualities, see?”

He leaves soon after they’re done, wraps her up in a hug that makes her feel calm for the first time since she woke up. When she closes the door behind him, she is happy for three breaths, and then the guilt hits her in a crack, and she stands in it for a long moment.

Her phone buzzes in her hand.

stop thinking and go to sleep. tomorrow is almost over.

Don’t remember signing up to a Rupi Kaur daily poem delivery?

fuck you :)

She smiles, pockets her phone and walks back down the hall to Ella’s room. She’s asleep in that perfect way that only babies can be, like someone’s distilled peace and wrapped it in a human package.

“Hi, little one,” she breathes, resting her chin under her hands on the side of the cot. Alex watches for a moment, Ella’s small hands in fists, baby lashes impossibly long. She doesn’t stir. Not for the first time, Alex wonders if she knows. It felt like she had, in the first few weeks. She’d seemed so miserable and discontent, like she knew her mother was devastatingly, irrevocably missing. But then her first tooth arrived, and slowly she settled, and Alex still doesn’t know which thought is worse; a grieving baby, or a baby not having the slightest clue that the worst thing that could possibly befall her has, in fact, befallen her.

“We’re going to have a good Christmas,” she whispers into black, “we’re going to have so many. I promise. You’re going to love Christmas. Just like your Mum.”

She stands, goes to leave the room after a beat. Before she closes the door, she takes one last look. The moon cuts into the room through the shutters, thin streaks of light just shy of touching the cot, silver white and almost protective.

It feels like Claire, inexplicably. Suddenly.

She allows herself a small quiet cry, and then it is time for bed.

Ninety-two days since Claire has been dead. That is Christmas Eve.