So when the elderly started filing off the buses, I hid behind Dad. The first bus shuttled them in from the retirement village in the town where Dad worked, so he had on his accountant face. He greeted several of his clients, but I stayed tucked safely behind his back. Their arthritic hands reached out to pat my shoulder. Their faces peered around Dad, but I tried not to look at them. Mom called her wrinkles “laugh lines,” but these people had deep and cavernous frown lines. Even when they smiled at me, I could see the frown hiding just beneath the surface.
I kept getting this prickly feeling, like goose bumps in my brain. Like chills on the inside. I looked at the ground, calling out cheerful Merry Christmases in hopes that my enthusiasm would make up for my rudeness.
Then I heard a much younger voice. “Hello, Mr. Maxwell.” I peered out from behind Dad’s back. “Hi, Delaney.”
“Nice to see you again, Troy,” Dad said.
Mom looked him over. She eyed his dark jeans and black leather jacket and black sneakers, mentally ticking off the ways in which he was not in appropriate Christmas Eve attire. “Oh, Troy, I’ve heard so much about you,” Mom said, taking his hand in hers. Embarrassing even if I had mentioned him, which I hadn’t. I shot her a look, but she wasn’t paying attention. “Where are your parents? I’d like to meet them.”
Troy’s face dropped. I pinched the back of Mom’s arm hard. “Ow, Delaney, what in God’s name has gotten into you?” She rubbed at the back of her arm.
“Later,” I mouthed, but I’m sure Troy saw it, too.
“It’s okay,” Troy said. “Delaney’s trying to tell you not to mention my parents because they’re dead. But it’s okay, really.”
Mom rapidly sucked in air. “I’m so sorry.”
“Wasn’t your fault.”
Her watery eyes scanned the crowd behind him. “Are you here with anyone?”
Troy looked down. “No, ma’am.”
She straightened her back and clapped her hands together. “Well, you’ll be joining us tonight.” Problem fixed.
We started walking up the steps, and I leaned into Troy. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Me? I’m here every week. What are you doing here?”
“Oh.” We Maxwells became practicing Catholics two days a year: Christmas Eve and Easter. And today barely counted. Really we’d just listen to the children’s choir perform and the priest tell a few Christmas stories.
We settled into the middle of an aisle, fifteen rows from the crucifixion. I felt a tug toward the front of the church. I looked at Troy. He nodded at me and leaned into my ear. “Second row. Woman in the blue scarf.” I craned my neck and saw her. Her wrinkles stretched from her face down the back of her neck. The blue scarf was tied around her head, and her bony shoulders jutted out through her black shawl.
“It’s not that strong,” I said.
“Not yet.”
“You think we can help her?”
“Look at her. Cancer. The only thing we can do is make the pain less.” He said it like he hurt just to look at her. I leaned into his side as we waited for the choir to begin.
“Delaney,” Mom leaned into me from the other side. “Take off your jacket. It’s sweltering in here.”
I froze. The Christmas Eve attire that Mom selected did not have sleeves that I could pull down over the bandage on my hand. Troy looked over at me and seemed to understand exactly what I was thinking. “Let me help you,” he said. He pulled the sleeve slowly off my arm, and as soon as it was exposed, he took my right hand in both of his and held it in his lap.
Mom looked at my hand in Troy’s lap, and I felt the heat rise from my neck to my face, but she didn’t say anything. She cleared her throat and turned to the pulpit and the singing began. The children’s choir sang “Silent Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” with heads turned upward. With the singing in my ears and the warmth of the room and Troy’s hands on mine, I knew Troy was wrong. There was no way this was hell.
After mass, after I put on my jacket and we filed out and stood in the parking lot, Mom placed her hand on Troy’s shoulder. “What are your Christmas plans, Troy?”
Troy had been looking over his shoulder, following the woman in the blue scarf as she made her way to the bus. Her face was hollow, her eyes sunken, and the driver had to help her up the steps. He turned to face us. “The place where I work is having a potluck.”
“A potluck!” Mom spit the word with distaste, as if she could think of nothing more appalling on Christmas. “Join us for dinner tomorrow. Three o’clock.”
“Oh, I can’t. I couldn’t . . .” He turned his head again, watching the bus close the door and rumble to life.
“We insist,” Mom said.
Troy looked around at us all. “Thank you for the offer but—”
“Come,” I said. He met my eyes, the word no hanging from his lips, but he turned his head as the bus started moving. He squinted as he watched it pull out of the parking lot and disappear down the road.
“Okay,” he said, sharp and quick. Then he spun around and jogged to his car.
I sat in the backseat with my eyes closed. I could deal with this. With Troy around, I could deal with it. Mom twisted around from the front seat.
“How old is he, Delaney?”
“What?”
“Troy. It just occurred to me that he said he worked. Do you know how old he is?”
“Nineteen.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Who does he live with?”
“I don’t know.” I looked out the window. If she knew he lived alone, I’d never be able to see him unsupervised. I’d never be able to take the car without telling her where I was going. I’d never be able to talk to the only person who knew what was going on with me. I’d be trapped. Hands tied to my bed, drugged to sleep, trapped.
She lowered her voice. “Do we need to have a talk?”
“Oh my God,” I said. Dad groaned.
Mom straightened herself back up. “Well excuse me for saying what we all were thinking.”
“He has roommates.” I said it so low I thought it barely even counted as a lie.
*
I replaced the gauze on my hand with a wide Band-Aid. “Paper cut from wrapping,” I explained when Mom pointed it out. We opened gifts under our artificial tree early Christmas morning. I got clothes in the next size up and a new cell phone to replace the one that drowned in Falcon Lake. Dad’s parents sent me fifty bucks, which brought my net worth to fifty-three dollars. Mom wore her new sweater, which didn’t look half-bad. Another small miracle in my life.
I lugged everything up to my room and started the process of putting my new clothes away and coming to terms with the fact that the clothes in the back of the closet didn’t really fit anymore. I pulled them out and threw them on the floor.
I was assessing the heap on the ground when someone knocked.
“Come in.”
Decker swung the door open but stayed in the hallway. I stayed by my closet. “Merry Christmas.” He rocked onto his heels and, after a moment of contemplation, stepped into my room and shut the door.
He stayed near the entrance. “About the other night—”
“Let’s not,” I said. I might say something stupid, and he might say something worse. I just wanted to fix things. I wanted to go back to normal. So I spoke again before he could say anything else. “I got you something. It’s perfect.” I fumbled around under my bed and pulled out his gift.
He sat down on the rumpled comforter and squinted at the wrapping paper. “Did you try to draw something on here?”
“Well, there were Christmas trees, see, that’s the Christmas part. And then there were stars. But I turned them into, you know, Jewish stars. That’s the Hanukkah part.”
“Star of David. Gee, Delaney, I don’t know what to say. You shouldn’t have.”
I settled on the bed, farther away than I’d normally sit. “Just open it already.”
He peeled back a layer of defaced wrapping paper. “It’s a shirt,” I blurted out before he opened the box. “I know how you hate surprises.”