Under the Mistletoe

She spent more time outside than in. It gave me more time with my grandma, who listened as I droned on and on about the boys in my high school gym class.

Mom would be on the red porch, in her little red chair, a poncho covering her knees, and her eyes firmly set on the bird pools we had set up weeks before. Her fingers furiously rubbed against paper as she took down notes on the feathers and eating habits and mating choices. The hobby absorbed her beautifully, and Dad was thankful for it.

His time in the Navy for the past twenty years was coming to a close. He had gone into the service immediately after high school, and his rank was enough for him to finally want to settle in and take care of his girls.

It was the liveliest spring of my teenage years. I made a few friends and was quite popular with making t-shirts for the girls in the AV club. I was close to making a stellar sale, actually, that evening, when, on the bordering lawn, walking towards our house on the hill, I noticed the porch was empty.

It was the first time in six weeks that Mom had not waved at me with a plate of fresh sandwiches in hand. I ran up the steps, ignoring the silence in the trees and the spiraling madness of bird clusters in the sky.

"What's wrong, mama?"

She was beside my grandmother, holding her hand in hers, face down. I heard sniffling and felt the sadness in the air. The bag dropped off my knees, and I along with it.

Wind rustled by my face, and the door swung open hard. I couldn't see through the tears clouding my eyes, but the strong scent of powerful coffee and grease made me more at ease, and less frantic.

"Papa, she's gone," I said.

Two heavy boots padded the floor and rushed towards us before stopping by the bed. I could feel him comforting his wife for her loss. Suddenly, an alert came through on his phone. He was showing us but I was too confused to know what was going on.

And then I felt it beneath my knees: the bubbling energy through the wood. I wiped my eyes and got up. He was pulling her away from the bed.

"No, Axel! I can't."

"We have to, Gloria. There's no time."

I was naive about the whole thing. It made no sense for him to pull Mom away and tell her that we had to hurry. Through a grunt of sheer will, he had his two girls pinned in his arms, barreling down for the basement.

In a passing glance, I saw through the kitchen window the sky swirling like a black milkshake. Part of a roof flew by. The latch to the basement shut down tight, and he ordered us to get behind the heavy shelves full of vaults of honey and canned food.

It was the fourteenth of March 2008.

We waited for the screaming wind to ebb, and all through that time, checking our silent phones, all we saw was that constant message. On and on. Over and over. For hours. For a night and a day.

Until it stopped.***"Seems like we're going to be here longer than dinner, huh?"

It's no longer a hurricane message. It's a quarantine alert, signed by the governor.

"He really thinks this is going to work?" asks Denue.

I can’t help but think it won’t. Telling a bunch of frustrated people who have hunkered down for weeks to not leave their front doors through Christmas Eve, through Christmas, is asking a bit much. I have a feeling some won’t follow the rules, but that’s nothing new.

"I suppose so."

He laughs and downs the last of his wine.

"Well, I'm glad you're staying with me for the holidays. Some company will be nice for a change."

It's in the way he says it. Calm, orderly and with heavy doses of subtext. I hide my emotions, the shiver running its course on my arms and neck, thinking of all he could mean. I am going to be stuck with this man through Christmas, in his house, in his space. But it’s a happy kind of stuck.

"I would love to stay," I tell him.

"Thank you. There's some work you could help me sort through after tomorrow. But for now, we call it a night. Is that okay?"

"Um, yeah."

Clearly, he can tell I am uneasy. I came with only the parcel that is right now at the top of the bureau at the far edge of the wall.

"Come on. I think I have a few things that might work for you. Don't worry about the plates. I'll be up for a minute."

Denue has fascinating imagery with his tastes. He makes a show of telling me about the paint he used for the hallways, the kind of tools he still has, where he learned his handy skills from, and how he simply loves working with his hands.