When You Were Mine

“Ally?” I turn to see Nick standing in the doorway, a slight frown on his face. “What are you doing?”

“Just watching the snow. Isn’t it beautiful?” My voice sounds a bit monotone. It’s so hard to know how to be normal now, even as I recognize that maybe, just maybe, I am overreacting. The prospect causes a sense of an out-of-reach relief. Still, I remind myself, both my children are healthy and here. That’s more than many people have. This isn’t the end of the world, but it is the end of a world, a fantasy one I had been happy to inhabit.

Nick comes over and puts his arm around me and I lean into him, taking comfort from his solid strength. This has hit me harder than him, perhaps because I have always responded more emotionally to the children than he has. He loves them, is proud of them, but he hasn’t bound up his whole sense of self in them the way I have. Considering how I feel now, surely that is only a good thing.

“The Christmas Eve service is in an hour,” he says, his mouth against my hair. “We’ll need to leave soon if we want to get a seat.”

“I don’t know if we should go this year.”

“Ally.” Nick straightens, easing back so he can look at me, although I don’t particularly want to meet his eye. “We always go to

church on Christmas Eve. It’s a tradition.”

“I know.”

“There’s no reason not to this year,” he says quietly.

“I’m just not in the mood.”

“If Josh or Emma said that, you’d tell them to get in the mood by going.”

I try to smile at that, but I can’t quite manage it. “I’m not even dressed.”

“That would take five minutes.”

I sigh, and Nick looks at me seriously, importantly, in a way I can’t avoid. “What is upsetting you the most?” he asks, and I shrug. I don’t know where to begin. “Is it Josh being suspended? Emma’s situation? Or something else?”

“You know, I don’t actually care whether she goes to Harvard or not,” I say suddenly. Savagely. The strength of my feeling surprises me. “I don’t care about Josh playing baseball or running 10k. None of that is what is important.”

“I know—”

“It’s the relationships I care about, Nick.” The love. “They act as if they either hate me, or they couldn’t care less about me. They blame me for everything. They won’t talk to me, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be, because all the things I was doing right have turned out to be wrong.”

Nick is silent for a moment. “They’re teenagers. They’re not known for acting warm and fuzzy. You can’t make decisions based on what they’re feeling in the moment. You have to have a bigger picture than that.”

“I know, but…” I think of all the photo Christmas cards currently residing on our mantelpiece, all the snapshots of joy and togetherness that every friend and relative and even minor acquaintance has felt compelled to send me, along with the humble-brag updates detailing all their accomplishments, from report cards to charity runs to vacations skiing in Vail or sunning in the Caribbean. All of it feels like an indictment of my life, my choices, my parenting.

“This feels like more than a stage or a phase,” I say. “More… fundamental.”

“Are you sure that’s not just in your mind?”

“Nick, our daughter tried to kill herself.”

“That’s not your fault.”

Isn’t it? I just shake my head, tight-lipped, despairing.

Nick pulls me towards him. “Let’s go to the service,” he murmurs against my hair. “Candlelight on Christmas Eve. Carols. It will lift your spirits.”

I still don’t want to go, but I nod, reluctantly, because it feels too selfish and mean to refuse.

Nick gives my shoulders a quick squeeze before he steps away. “Great. I’ll get the kids ready.”

Ten minutes later, we’re all walking towards the Episcopal church in the center of town, with its stained-glass windows and arched red doors. It’s still snowing, which makes everything magical, and there is a festive spirit in the air, with people smiling and nodding at each other, the occasional “Merry Christmas!” ringing out.

It’s hard not to be affected by it, at least a little, and even though I’m still dragging inside, I summon a smile for both Emma and Josh. They don’t smile back, not exactly, and I see a flicker of uncertainty in their eyes—or am I imagining it? Hoping for anything other than the unyielding hardness I’ve felt from them for the last few months?

We walk in silence into the church, slipping inside the candle and evergreen-scented interior, an organ playing “What Child is This” as we take our place in one of the pews. The place fills up quickly, the mood both hushed and happy.