I hesitated. I had thought about confiding in Sam, telling him about the marijuana and the Vicodin and Paul Simmons, but I was still shaken by the look Dr. Simmons had given me and by Ren’s implicit threat. I didn’t know if Sam could help, and I feared that if I asked him to try, I would just drag him down with me. So I smiled. “Yeah,” I said. “I am. Thanks.” Sam glanced at me once more, his eyes as perceptive as ever, but he tapped his desk once with his fingers, put his glasses back on, and we continued talking about essay questions.
While I enjoyed the brief holiday, I dreaded the idea of spending the forthcoming two and a half weeks of Christmas vacation at Blackburne. So, reluctantly and not without a fair amount of guilt, I called my parents to ask if I could come visit. I had not been home, for Christmas or for any vacation, for almost three years, ever since I’d been with Michele. Her mother had died in a car crash when she was in high school, and she had a rich father somewhere in New Jersey, but he was busy doting on wife number three and their twin sons, so Michele had written him off. She’d balked at the idea of going home to Asheville with me for our first Thanksgiving together. Instead, she wanted the two of us to start our own tradition, cozying together in the big city. I’d had just enough of a taste of an elite Manhattan lifestyle that the idea of going home to see Mom wearing an apron and pulling a turkey out of an oven seemed ridiculously clichéd. When I called to tell my parents we were staying in New York, my father told me they understood, although Mom, when she got on the line, sounded almost shrill in her happy denial of disappointment. “You kids stay up there and enjoy each other!” she said. “Dad and I will be just fine! Don’t worry!” Michele ended up burning the turkey, and we found ourselves ordering General Tso’s chicken to accompany the sides of green bean casserole and mashed potatoes that I had managed to make, which tasted just enough like Mom’s to make me wish I were eating the real thing. After that Thanksgiving, my parents had flown up to New York three times, each visit more stressful than the last. Nothing horrible had happened, although Michele had been brittle and tense, and I felt I was being too loud when regaling my parents with stories of famous people we had met. My parents were nothing but kind to me and Michele, which somehow made me feel worse.
I had not seen my parents since their last visit the previous February, and while I had told them about losing my agent—to which my mother especially had responded with sympathy and outrage—I had said nothing about Michele’s rehab, or that we had broken up. Anxiety coursed through me as I made the call—I almost hung up as I listened to the phone ring. But then I heard my mother’s warm voice on the other end and, despite myself, I was suffused with something like relief. She was delighted to hear from me and said in her no-nonsense way that of course they would love to have me come for Christmas. “It’ll save us the postage for mailing your present to you,” she said with a laugh.
The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas break came and went like so many hours. My students clamored for study packets and review sheets and asked questions that I pointed out they should have been asking all semester. I had to force myself to remember that I had most likely done the same thing when I was a fourth former.
When they weren’t stressing over exams, my students were anticipating Christmas vacation like submariners looking forward to shore leave in some exotic port. Rusty Scarwood’s family was going to the Bahamas, Hal Starr’s to Disney World. Christmas music blared from dorm rooms, the cornier the better—“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” was a favorite. Stephen Watterson was almost purple with embarrassment as he dropped off a gift at my door: a jar of strawberry preserves his mother had made. “She makes them for all my teachers,” he said, as if by way of apology.
Ben Sipple still looked pale and haunted, but he had moved in with Brian Schue, Terence’s old roommate. Ben would acknowledge me with only a brief nod or a simple yes or no, and I figured he was embarrassed at how he’d broken down in front of me that night in the chapel. However, on the last page of his exam responses—which students still composed in Blue Books—Ben had written, “Have a good break, Mr. Glass.” That lifted my heart a little.
THE DAY AFTER THE students departed, I graded the last of my exams, and then I packed a bag and drove south. It was a gorgeous day, the sky a deep, clear blue with large white clouds passing overhead, backlit by a bright sun. The mountains marched by on either flank as I drove down the highway, and when I came out of the Shenandoah Valley and began the long, sweeping descent out of the Virginia mountains to the North Carolina border, I could see the cloud shadows racing over the plains a thousand feet below.
Late that afternoon, I turned westward toward Asheville and was again climbing the Blue Ridge. The sun was going down, and by the time I drove into the valley and past Black Mountain and Swannanoa, night covered the hills.
Mom and Dad lived in Biltmore Forest, a small community of winding roads and tall pines, rhododendrons, and boxwoods, just south of Asheville proper. As I turned into the Forest, I could see the Christmas lights and wreaths adorning doors and windows, red ribbons on green foliage.
Finally, I pulled into the driveway, the white gravel shining under the distant stars, and gazed at the modest, two-story brick Colonial Revival house where I had grown up. I hadn’t even gotten out of my car before the front door opened and Dad came out onto the porch, arm raised in greeting.
We hugged briefly, and then Dad looked appraisingly at my Porsche. “Very nice!” he said.
This saddened me, since my father seemed to be forcing himself to compliment something he didn’t actually approve of. At that moment I was embarrassed by my car, which suddenly seemed to represent everything shallow and failed about my life. “My only indulgence,” I said, trying to wave the feeling off with a joke, and then opened the tiny trunk and wrestled my bag out. “How’s Mom?”
“Making dinner,” he said. “A feast for a king.”
We good-naturedly argued over who would carry my bag, with Dad winning and leading the way, wobbling slightly under the bag’s weight. He looked different than the last time I had seen him, a bit more worn, and with a pang I realized he was sixty. How many more times would I walk into this house behind him? Then my mother was in the front hall, wiping her hands on a flowered apron before flinging her arms around me. “Matthias! Oh, it’s so good to see you! Let’s get you inside. I’ve got a roast in the oven. Thomas,” she called to my father, “just put his bag down and let’s get Matthias a glass of wine. How was your trip?”