The only silver lining, she decides, is the timing. For although the approach of Christmas makes her grief more palpable, it gives her a quiet purpose and focus as she sets about her usual goal of single-handedly creating the sort of Norman Rockwell traditions that comprise the best childhood memories. She takes Charlie caroling with a group from her mother’s church, she builds gingerbread houses with him, she helps him write letters to Santa. All the while, she holds her breath, hoping that Charlie doesn’t ask about Nick, determined to create enough magic in her son’s life so that he won’t realize anything is missing.
Two days before Christmas, on the eve of Christmas Eve, as Charlie calls it, she is feeling particularly satisfied with her efforts. As she and Charlie sit by the tree, sipping eggnog, she tells herself that it is only she who feels Nick’s absence—that Charlie is content. Sure enough, he looks up at her and announces that their Christmas tree is the best, better than the one in the lobby of his school, even better than the one at the mall next to Santa.
“Why’s that?” she asks him, milking the compliment, feeling proud, even moved.
“We have more colorful ornaments, fuller branches . . . and more lights.”
She smiles at him, thinking that stringing lights is one of those things she has always put in the category of fatherly tasks, like taking out the trash or mowing the lawn, only much more critical to a child. Because of this, she has always ensured that no man could do a finer job, taking hours to intertwine dozens of strands of blinking, colored lights through the branches, making them as dense as possible, perfecting their placement as if an army of elves were in on the action. She sips her own liberally spiked eggnog and says, “Well, I think I’d have to agree with you. We have a mighty fine tree.”
One beat later, Charlie sprawls out on the floor, resting his chin in his hands, and says, “When is Nick coming over to see it?”
She freezes, his name spoken aloud making her heart flutter, then sink. She has only heard it once since he ended things—when Jason asked for an update. She responded simply, told him that it was over and that she didn’t want to talk about it—an answer her brother wordlessly accepted.
But she cannot give her son the same line now. So instead, she waffles. “I don’t know, sweetie,” she says, feeling guilty for stringing him along but determined not to taint his Christmas, this moment, desperate for the conversation to wait until January.
“When are we going to see him?” Charlie asks, seeming to detect something wrong in his mother’s voice or expression.
“I don’t know,” she says again, forcing a smile. She clears her throat and tries to change the subject back to the tree, remarking on a snowman ornament she made as a child.
“We have to see him before Christmas,” Charlie says. “To exchange gifts.”
Valerie tenses, but says nothing.
“Don’t you have a present for him?” he presses.
She thinks of the vintage postcards of Fenway Park that she bought for Nick on eBay, now tucked into her sock drawer, and the tickets to the symphony she bought for Charlie to give him, imagining the two going alone together, but shakes her head. “No,” she lies to her son. “I don’t.”
“Why not?” he asks, looking confused. In the dim, reddish glow of the tree, she can barely make out the burn on his cheek, and she thinks of how far they have come in two months, how she never imagined that they would be here, like this, that she could ever worry about anything other than Charlie’s basic health. She feels fleeting comfort in this until she considers the emotional damage that this setback could cause. Perhaps more lasting than a scar on his face. “Why don’t you have a present for Nick?”
Her insides seize as she carefully replies, “I don’t know . . . Because he’s not family.”
“So? He’s our friend,” Charlie says.
“Yes . . . But I really only buy presents for family,” she says lamely.
Charlie seems to consider this and then says, “Do you think he got us one?”
“I don’t know, honey. Probably not. . . But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you . . .” she says, her voice trailing off.
“Oh,” Charlie says, looking momentarily hurt. Then his face clears as he says, “Well, that’s okay. I still have something for him.”
“What do you have for him?” she asks nervously.
“It’s a secret,” he says, his voice mysterious in the way of a little boy trying to be mysterious.
“Oh,” she says, nodding.
He looks at her as if he is concerned that he just hurt her feelings. “It’s a Star Wars thing. You wouldn’t understand, Mommy.”
She nods again, adding this to the growing list of things she doesn’t—and likely never will—understand.
“Mommy?” Charlie asks after a few beats of quiet.
“What’s that, Charlie?” she says, hoping that the next words from her little boy will be about Star Wars, not Nick.
“Are you sad?” he asks her.
She blinks and smiles and shakes her head. “No. No . . . Not at all,” she says as convincingly as she can. “It’s Christmas. And I’m with you. How can I be sad?”
He seems to accept this, adjusting the Nativity scene along the Christmas tree skirt, pushing Joseph’s and Mary’s heads together as if in a symbolic gesture before his next question. “Did you and Nick break up? Like Jason always does with his boyfriends?”