Elaine knew their banter was a sign of their closeness, and her heart swelled with affection and gratitude as they were escorted to the round table near the fireplace that Rob always requested. She wasn’t sure when it had happened exactly, but her son was now a man, and very nearly a doctor, the first in their family. And it wasn’t just Daniel who was thriving. They were all in a good place, she thought. Rob was doing well at work, and hadn’t had a drink in three years. Their marriage wasn’t perfect, but it felt solid. Josie and Meredith were works in progress, one a little too wild, the other far too moody; yet each was following her passion, studying to be a teacher and an actress, respectively.
The conversation that night was smart and lively, heavy on current events. September 11 was still a fresh wound. The war in Afghanistan was under way. Enron had just filed for bankruptcy, and Winona Ryder had shoplifted. And in news that seemed to interest only Daniel and Sophie: the Earth’s record high barometric pressure had just been recorded in Mongolia—over a thousand hectopascals, a measurement that meant absolutely nothing to the rest of them but would remain lodged in Elaine’s brain for years to come.
“You’re such a nerd,” Josie ribbed her brother at one point, though she secretly admired his intelligence. She had always relied on the force of her personality, but a girl like Sophie made her rethink things, and she vowed to get more serious about her studies in her final, fifth-year stretch of college.
Meredith, too, reflected on her life that evening. She was as diligent and hardworking as her brother, but she was more of a loner than he, and often felt a void she could never quite pinpoint. Maybe it was love, she thought that night, watching Daniel with Sophie. Maybe that was what was missing.
After dinner, they went home to have cake in the dining room, Elaine pulling the good china and silver from the butler’s pantry. Rob lit twenty-five candles, then they all sang off-key (except for Sophie, who had a clear soprano voice) and watched Daniel close his eyes for several seconds before blowing out the flames in just one try.
“What did you wish for?” Josie asked, the way someone always did.
Of course Daniel wouldn’t say. He just smiled a secretive smile before Rob cut the cake and he opened his family presents—a leather briefcase from his parents, flannel pajamas from Josie, a coffee-table book about baseball from Meredith. They all retired a short time later, Elaine pretending that she didn’t hear the creaky floorboard outside the guest room.
The next morning she awoke early to the sound of rain on the roof and Rob packing for a quick trip to Memphis, his last-ditch effort to settle a case before year-end. She got up to make him coffee and send him on his way, then went to the gym with her daughters, all of them wishing to lose five pounds, especially knowing that after the holidays, it would be ten. They came home, showered, and spent the rest of that day shopping, fighting gridlock traffic and Lenox Square mall crowds, and getting into occasional squabbles with one another.
They returned home at dusk, just as Daniel was leaving to take Sophie to the airport for her red-eye back to London. The rain had finally cleared, but the temperatures had plummeted, and they stood in the driveway, shivering as they hugged and kissed and wished one another a very merry Christmas. As they got in the car, Sophie said a final thank you.
“We’ll see you soon,” Elaine replied, because she’d never liked saying goodbye.
—
ABOUT AN HOUR later, as Elaine wrapped presents at the kitchen table, Daniel burst in the side door with a gust of cold and a trace of Sophie’s perfume. Elaine quickly drew a piece of wrapping paper over the slippers she was giving him and told him not to peek.
“I won’t,” Daniel said, shaking his head. He had never been one to peek, unlike his sisters, who prided themselves on finding the most cleverly hidden presents.
He sat at the table and sighed, looking wistful, clearly missing Sophie already. “Where are the girls?” he asked—the way he always referred to Josie and Meredith.
“Meredith’s up in her room….Josie went out…somewhere.”
He nodded, then helped her wrap, handing her pieces of tape or holding ribbon in place with his thumb while she tied. He wasn’t a big talker but was unusually chatty that night, and couldn’t stop gushing about Sophie. He confided that they were serious, committed to doing their surgical residencies together.
“You think she’s ‘The One’?” Elaine asked.
“I do,” he said, looking starry-eyed. “She’s so amazing…and I couldn’t imagine a better mother for my children.”
Elaine smiled at her son, thinking that as young and ambitious as he was, he seemed to understand what really mattered most in life. She wondered whether she and Rob deserved credit, or if he’d simply been born this way. She decided it was a little of both and kissed Daniel’s forehead before he went upstairs to shower.
On his way to his room, he passed by Meredith’s open door. She looked up and asked if she could borrow his Macy Gray CD. He went and got it for her, telling her to be careful, not to scratch it.
“I’m not Josie. I don’t trash things,” she said. She knew her expression was morose, but she couldn’t change it, blaming PMS, the weather, and her older sister, who had pissed her off before she left the house in jeans too tight and a top too small.
“You okay?” Daniel asked her.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem sad.”