I let him push me forward. I even let him guide me to the ottoman in front of the hearth. And when Shelly appeared, he insisted she take the spot next to mine.
Roscoe assumed his usual role of handing out gifts from under the tree, and soon the room was a mess of wrapping paper and opened boxes. Soft chatter was punctuated every so often by an exclamation of surprise and gratitude. A Bluegrass Christmas played softly over the speakers while the fire dying in the hearth crackled and hissed.
I held Shelly’s first gift on my lap, but I was running out of time. Soon my stalling would become obvious.
I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to stall. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to be worthy of her bravery.
Thus, I turned to her and shoved the first gift into her hands. “Hey, this is for you.”
She’d been talking to Billy about something—I didn’t know what—so my abrupt disruption of their conversation and thrusting of an object onto her lap was considerably less graceful than what I’d been planning. Oh well. Bravery was still bravery, no matter how clumsy the execution.
Shelly gave me a startled look. “Oh, thank you.”
I glanced at Billy, about to offer an apology for the interruption, but he was staring at me like my discomfort amused him. I decided not to apologize.
Also my knee was bouncing, fueled by nerves. I squirmed in my seat as Shelly flipped the gift and carefully removed the tape. Then she slipped the book from the paper with excessive caution. I suspected she was having obsessive thoughts about ripping wrapping paper. This was the first time I’d given her a wrapped present, so I had to wonder if this was a new compulsion or an old one.
I made a note to ask her later.
Shelly stared at the revealed object, her brows pulling together. “What is this?”
I had to clear my throat before I could speak. “It’s a book on how to do kintsugi. It’s a Japanese method of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold. I guess they also can use silver or platinum, but gold seems to be the most popular.”
Her eyes moved over the cover, and then lifted to mine, her gaze telling me she was confused. “You want me to learn how to do kintsugi?”
I reached forward and flipped it open to a dog-eared page, where a fancy-as-shit teacup had been repaired using the method. The elegant white of its porcelain was interrupted by graceful lines of gold—where the handle had broken off, where the cup had cracked in two.
“As a philosophy,” I pointed to the cup, “the point of kintsugi is to treat broken pieces and their repair as part of the history of an object. A break is something to remember, something of value, a way to make the piece more beautiful, rather than something to disguise. They use gold, not invisible superglue, because mistakes shouldn’t be considered ugly. Broken pieces and their repair merely contribute to the story of an object, they don’t ruin it.”
Shelly stared at the page, saying nothing. She stared for a long time, her finger tracing the line of gold traversing the teacup.
“It is beautiful.”
I decided to ignore the unsteady quality of her voice, saying instead, “Much more interesting than a plain old perfect teacup. If you think about it, no two teacups break in the same way. So of course each repaired teacup becomes something new, and wholly unique.”
She closed the book and brought it to her chest, clutching it reverently. “I love it.”
“Good.”
Thank God.
Her gaze landed on mine and it shone with what looked like unshed tears, but she was wearing a smile. Warmth spread outward from my chest to my limbs. It was the kind of smile that made me fuzzy-headed and happy, and aware of the now.
But before either of us could speak, another present was dropped on her lap.
“This is from me and Jenn.”
We both looked up. Cletus was standing in front of us, his arms crossed. “You should open it now. I like it a lot, so if you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”
“Cletus,” Jenn hollered from the kitchen, “stop being a bully!”
I rolled my lips between my teeth and shook my head at my brother. Shelly, however, smiled widely, her attention moving beyond Cletus to the entryway of the kitchen just as Jenn appeared.
“And I told you to wait to give it to her until I was here.” Jenn wiped her hands on a towel attached to her apron and crossed to Cletus, wrapping her arm around his waist and grinning down at Shelly. “Go on and open it.”
Shelly carefully removed the tape, just as she’d done with my gift, and set the wrapping paper aside. As she did this, the rest of my family pulled out their wrapped boxes, each similar to the one Cletus had just deposited in her lap.
My pulse jumped, picking up speed, because I knew what was going to happen next.
Actually, that wasn’t precisely true. I knew what my family was going to do because I knew what was in the boxes. But I didn’t know what would happen when she opened them. Either she’d hate the gesture, or she’d love it.
Just own it.
I braced myself, glancing between her and the box as I bent to the side and grabbed the other two items I’d brought for her. One was a box like all the others—about eight inches deep, wide, and tall—and the other was much smaller, weighing about six ounces.
As soon as Shelly removed the lid, a small sound of surprise slipped past her lips and her eyes darted to mine. They were wide and rimmed with an alarming number of conflicting emotions.
“It’s a teacup.”
“Take it out of the box so you can admire its superiority over all other teacups.” Cletus hugged Jenn to him.
Shelly breathed in through her nose, swallowed, then reached for the cup and pulled it from the box. As soon as I saw it, my lips parted and my eyes sliced to my brother.
“Really, Cletus? Where did you even find that?”
“It’s nice, right?” He grinned. “I’ve discovered the existence of a website entitled Etsy. You can order just about anything custom made.”
“So you ordered a teacup with stamped on hot dogs?” I didn’t try to hide my irritation.
“It is hand painted, Beauford,” he sniffed. “And technically, they’re Bavarian bratwursts.”
Shelly placed her hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze, forcing my attention to hers.
“I love it,” she whispered to me, then tilted her chin back to look at Cletus. “You’re not getting it back.”
My brother’s smile returned—smaller, but more genuine than before—and he nodded once. “I figured as much, so I ordered a set for myself.”
Ashely and Drew’s cup was next, a vintage cup and saucer with gold lining the interior and large pink and blue flowers painted on the outside.
Then Roscoe gave her one with little, happy looking dogs, immortalized mid-leap like they were chasing each other’s tails.
Billy’s was blue and white with faded gold on the handle. Lonely birds lined the rim as though flying in a never-ending circle.
Sienna and Jethro’s came from an artist in Mexico, a distant relative of hers, and was painted in swirling design with bright colors against a brown background.