Are You Sitting Down?, Page 7

  I knew Mom would warn the others that Mark would not be here this year, so no one would ask about him. We’ve all had struggles, but because it’s Christmas we were exempt from talking about them. Mom, afraid talking about our problems with each other would ruin the holiday, wanted things to be perfect. Maybe Travis would want to toast Justin at the dinner table tonight. Maybe Clare felt like announcing that Andre had started paying child support. But Mom’s desire for a picture perfect postcard Christmas would keep all of us hushed.

  The White family always managed to sweep their problems under the rug, especially when we spent time together. We never discussed our failures with one another. We each had too many. So, it was the diminutive bits of happy we have that we utilized at the holidays. My marriage was falling apart and about to end in divorce, but they already knew that. I didn’t need to say it out loud. I didn’t feel the need to talk about it with them.

  Instead, I really wanted to tell someone how much I was still in love with Mark. That was the happiness I wanted to put on the table. I wanted to stand up in the middle of the living room tonight and scream it to everyone while they were opening gifts. Instead, I’d call Mark tonight. I’d tell him.

  By the end of the day today, I’d call and tell him I still loved him.

  Travis

  “Wow, I wish she was always that happy to see me,” Mom said after Clare came up and hugged me before running into the house.

  “Do you need some help with Jake?” I asked.

  “I’ve got him. I’ve got the baby boy,” Mom sang.

  Jake blinked his eyes awake with a wobbly head. He looked around to familiarize himself with where he was. Seeing Grandma’s face made him light up with bliss. He grabbed at her neck with a baby hug. Mom hugged him back and gave him Grandma kisses.

  “Hey there, lil guy,” I said gently shaking Jake’s arm.

  Jake wrapped a tiny hand around my finger and looked intently at my face with intrigue. He had not seen me in weeks, but I could tell his tiny mind was trying to place me.

  “I can’t believe how much he’s grown,” I said. “How’s he walking?”

  “Honey, he doesn’t walk anymore. He runs. Will you check the car and bring in her things?” Mom said, taking Jake into the house.

  I wrinkled my nose at the sight of the inside of Clare’s car. The seats were damp in places from spilled drinks. The floorboards were filled with old bags from fast food restaurants. I collected Jake’s bag and the gallon of milk that was sitting on the front seat. If Clare was staying the night or had brought gifts, the rest of her things must have been in the trunk. Curiosity told me to snoop in the glove box. It was locked. I looked over at the steering wheel and noticed she had left the keys in the ignition.

  I took the keys and unlocked the glove compartment. The door fell forward revealing a heap of clear brown prescription bottles. It reminded me of a box of spools Mom once kept from sewing. They made nice blocks for us kids to play with. I picked up a few of the bottles to examine the labels but only found Clare’s name on one or two of them. They were all prescriptions for valium and various types of pain killers. I recognized some of the names from when Justin was sick and had to take all sorts of medication. I shut the glove box and went inside the house. I tucked Clare’s keys into my pocket, waiting for an opportune moment to confront her about what I’d found.

  I entertained Jake while Mom checked the pots on the stove and Clare was still upstairs in the bathroom. His heavy sleepy eyes, fuzzy hair, and pouty lips reminded me of Justin rolling out of bed and waddling through the house in the early morning. He was always a light sleeper, often going to bed before nine if we were in for the night, and always waking up by five. He’d make coffee and check email while I was still in bed.

  Sometimes, I would awake to find him sitting on our balcony. The sun had just come up and he’d be enjoying a cup of coffee in the cool morning air. I’d stand and watch him through the kitchen window over the sink, while pouring coffee for myself. Justin would be sitting at the small patio table and talking to himself, or to some ghost sitting across from him. I tried not to disturb him. I’d wander off into the house to watch television. On some days, out of the corner of his eye he’d see me standing their behind the window. He’d smile and wave to me, like a friend sitting in an airport or a café who spots a loved one they’ve been waiting for. His smile was like sunshine; I was happy to see it every morning.

  I still woke up early now out of habit. I made my own coffee and checked email or read a few pages of a book. I enjoyed my time to myself in the morning before work or on the weekends. Not much had changed, except Justin wasn’t a part of my morning now. Instead, it was me who sat at the table on chilly mornings and talked to his ghost.

  “Do you think I should go upstairs and check on her?” Mom asked.

  “I think she’s okay. Give her a few more minutes.”

  “What if she’s fainted?”

  “I think we would have heard something.”

  “I’m not so sure. I’m going up there.”

  Mom leaned in front of me to pick up Jake. It was as if she didn’t trust me with him. I didn’t trust myself with him. Kids are fun, as long as a parent is close by when they start to cry or need a diaper changed. Mom hurried up the stairs with him to check on Clare. I went into the living room to admire the Christmas tree. It looked the same as it always had for years now, as if Mom just left all the lights and ornaments on and tucked it away in the attic like a piece of furniture.

  She had never put lights on the tree when we were kids. There was a large spotlight that hung on the curtain rod to shine down on the tree. It had a motorized disk divided into four colors that turned in front of the spotlight, changing the color of the light from green to orange to red to blue. These spotlights were meant to shine onto aluminum Christmas trees. I still see them in vintage and antique stores sometimes. It was a firm brick in the foundation of my childhood holiday memories in this house.

  When dad passed last year, Mom didn’t want to put up the tree. I’d driven up to spend Thanksgiving with her. Ellen decided to cook and have everyone over to their house. After dinner, we came back to Mom’s house and put the tree up for her. Since Ellen and I had planned on doing this, I’d gone to a store and bought strands of multi-colored lights to put on the tree instead of using the spotlight. I’d also bought a few dozen painted glass balls and a hodge-podge of Santa and toy-like ornaments. Ellen bought a new angel for the top.

  Giving Mom’s traditional tree a face lift would hopefully keep it from reminding her of Dad. The spotlight was never used again, however, Mom insisted we put the tree up for her again this year because we’d done such a good job with it before.

  I often thought Mom pulled out the photo albums to consult pictures from years past when it came to putting it up herself. Even the faded construction paper ornaments we’d all made as kids in school still adorned the tree branches with their pipe cleaner hooks. She always chose different themed gift wrap each year and different colors of live poinsettias for the mantle, but the yard decorations always looked the same.

  Mom made sure that one of us always took photos of the tree each year. All of the gifts were piled under it, often spilling out into the middle of the living room floor or onto an adjacent chair. With five kids, there were always so many gifts that they were leaned up against the wall in the back. If we were getting clothes, shirt boxes were stacked three and four deep against the wall like books on a shelf. Mom would insist we turn the camera sideways and take a long picture of the tree up and down, and then we had to take a picture of just all of the gifts, then the top half of the tree.

  These three photos would receive a whole page in a photo album of hers labeled with that year on the cover. She’d take the two pictures of the top and bottom half of the tree and place them side by side overlapping to create one big image. Photos of each of us kids and each grandchild opening their gifts would follow. Although she usually made faces or convenie
ntly ran out of film, we always took photos of her opening her gifts last. After dad died, the photos of her didn’t find their way into her albums. The scrapbooks of our memories were all about us kids and the grandkids instead.

  Making these photo albums was a year long family tradition for as long as I could remember. There was an album for each of us, containing photos from every birthday and also every school yearbook picture in order from kindergarten through our senior year of high school. Mom always bought a package of our school photos in the spring and the fall. The white envelopes with the clear plastic windows and our school logo on the front, still containing extra wallet sized photos we had never given away, were tucked between the pages of the albums.

  Her Christmas albums alone filled up two shelves of the built-in bookcases in her sewing room. My photos of me and Justin were all digital and stored on CDs or on the computer. I wondered if my brothers and sisters kept albums or had other family photo traditions of their own.

  Sitting on the floor by the tree, I was arranging the gifts I’d brought when Mother and Clare came down the stairs. Mother headed toward the kitchen with Jake still in her arms.

  “Do you want some coffee? I’m going to make a cup for Clare,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Cream and sugar for you too?”

  “Okay, just a little sugar,” I said standing back up. I looked up to see Clare walking out the front door. “Where is she going? Is everything alright?”

  “I think she’s just tired. She’s going out to her car to bring in her gifts. You should go help her,” Mom said from the kitchen.

  Since Mom was busy with Jake and making coffee, I decided to take this opportunity to ask Clare about the pill bottles I’d seen in her glove box. Besides, I still had her car keys in my pocket.

  Giving her keys back after I accidentally startled her, she popped the trunk and loaded my arms with gifts. She was confrontational about the pill bottles when I brought them up, something about a substitution for happiness. I tried not to sound like Mom when talking to Clare, but with her being our little sister I’m sure she felt like she had a houseful of parents sometimes. She was closer to Sebastian than any of us, but only because they were closer in age. I remember they shared clothes and accessories when they were both into the punk scene and wore black make-up and shirts stitched with safety pins.

  With nothing to say to me, she just walked away and went back into the house like she always did when she was tired of listening. Clare was unable to communicate with any of us very well except Sebastian, it seemed. It would be useless to ask him to talk to her because he had the same issues with drugs, and rather than try to console her or find out what’s bothering her, he’d probably want to bum valium from her if he found out she had any. Ever since Jake was born, I was pretty sure she’d given up pot and cigarettes. I don’t even think she drank anymore, but the pills worried me.

  Jake was the answer to our prayers that Mom would never get a phone call in the middle of the night telling her Clare was behind bars—or worse—dead. She was still young and a bit immature, and still rolled her eyes at her older siblings when they spoke to her, but Clare was a good mother. She had a steady good-paying job, a nice downtown apartment, and she could afford Jake’s daycare on her own.

  Back inside the house, Clare was sitting on the sofa with Jake and attempting to keep his hands off her coffee mug. The boxes she’d brought in lay beside her. Mom was sitting opposite her holding a mug for me. I had the odd feeling I’d interrupted a hushed conversation between them. Mom stood up and took a few boxes from me, placing them on the floor. I sat the rest under the tree and took the hot coffee from her.

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said, wrapping my bare hands around the coffee mug to warm them.

  “Why don’t you sit down and visit with your sister? I’m going to attend to some things in the kitchen,” Mom said.

  I got up to arrange Clare’s gifts under the tree. From the corner of my eye, I caught her rolling her eyes at me. She bounced Jake on her knee, content with pretending I wasn’t in the room. This awkward silence between us was typical. We didn’t dislike each other. She was the youngest, and she and Sebastian had been equally rebellious compared to us other kids. I don’t think there was any resentment she housed particularly against me.

  With Jake, she’d had to grow up fast and I think the transition from her teenage years into her twenties was still taking place. Although, before the age of sixteen she’d probably illegally done most of the things you are not supposed to do until you are twenty-one. Clare was still poorly clinging to the days of being daddy’s little girl. The look on her face now was just a facade she could almost keep in a jewelry box with her belongings. We were quite accustomed to seeing it.

  “She’ll grow out of it. Sebastian did,” Mom would say when we’d speak about Clare’s anger.

  Sebastian was never really angry. He was too strung out to hold defenses against anyone. Although he was a loser in high school, he was quite popular as the class clown. He flunked almost everything or was kicked out of class, but Mom made him finish. He begged her to let him quit and get his GED, but she just knew he’d end up in a fast food joint flipping burgers. After five years of high school, he ended up there anyway for a while. Now, he was a bartender in some college pub. Completely emerged in the party lifestyle of never ending music, drugs, beer, and girls, Sebastian wasn’t much different from Clare. He just knew how to make better with the cards life had dealt him.

  It’s not fair to say his life was supposed to turn out this way. Sebastian could have straightened up and studied harder. He could have gone to college and became a doctor or lawyer, but Mom and Dad never pushed us to do anything we didn’t want to do. They just wanted each of us to be happy, so I didn’t feel sorry for Sebastian. He certainly didn’t feel sorry for himself, and never asked for our sympathy. The cards he’d been dealt were the ones he was content with playing.

  “So you have a really nice apartment in Memphis,” Clare said from behind me.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “I’m not asking. Sebastian told me.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah. He said he had a really good time staying with you.”

  “He told you about staying with me?”

  “Yeah. Why wouldn’t he?”

  “He told me not to let anyone know he was there.”

  “He went there to dry out.”

  I didn’t know why Clare was bringing all of this up. Sebastian had either already told her everything, or she was fishing for information. Sebastian got pretty messed up after losing a girlfriend back in the summer. He called me in the early morning one night and wanted to drive down right then to stay with me for a few days. He needed to get away. By the time the cops were looking for him, I had convinced him to at least call the police department and let them know where he was. He had nothing to hide, but coming to Memphis definitely looked like he was trying to run away from what had happened.

  “Clare, if you ever need a place to stay—”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m just offering.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Clare, just listen to me. I know you’ve never really had a chance to get away from this place, this town, and I know what that can be like. If you ever need a break, just call me. Jake can come too if you want.”

  “It’s easy for you to run off to your skyscrapers at the end of the day.”

  “It’d been harder to stay in this small town. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “This is home,” she said.

  “And it will always be home to me too, but sooner or later the birds leave the nest. You can’t sit there and tell me honestly that you are happy still living here in Ruby Dregs, can you?”

  “Is everything okay in here? Travis, why are you yelling?” Mom asked, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize I was.”

  I walked to the f
ront door as if someone was knocking, or as if I was going to walk outside into the snow, anything to escape the tension I’d created. Lucky for me, I noticed a small red car pulling up into the driveway.

  “Whose red car?” I asked out loud.

  “Sebastian,” Mom and Clare said practically in unison.

  Sebastian

  Going to Mom’s for Christmas was a lot like detox. I usually didn’t drink or smoke anything for two days before. I also would wash whatever I planned to wear at least twice or have it dry cleaned if I had the money. I brushed my teeth for an hour the night before and that morning, and chewed half a pack of gum while driving there.

  It was rare for me not to smell like booze or smoke, especially since I worked in a bar. My siblings were well aware of my addictions and weaknesses. If one of them wasn’t standing by at the hospital while my stomach was getting pumped, then they were visiting me in an actual detox facility. I spent at least a week or two there during each year of high school. I was pulled over for drunk driving before I was eighteen. Mom and Dad left me in jail for the night, hoping it’d “scare some sense” into me. I stayed sober for only about a week, but I did stay out from behind the wheel long after that.

  Getting a job in a bar didn’t help. Mom frowned at the idea and said I was putting the nails in my coffin, but at least I was earning a paycheck. She no longer had to pay my rent or buy my groceries. Kids always seem to gravitate toward whatever their parents fear the most, at least for a little while. Once Clare got pregnant, their interventions toward me stopped.

  I was the kid who was just trying to get by. I had no plans for the future. I lived for today and that was about it. I would have dropped out of high school if Mom would have let me. The words ‘when are you going to do something with your life’ stopped after Dad died. We all learned that our time together was precious, but for me it was just another excuse to drink. The excuses came to a halt when I met Lind.