I tried to smother a smile, but failed. “Good,” I said. “Good trip.” I was grinning at my mother, at her busyness and her orchestration of everything, from dinner to where my father put my bag. She realized what I was doing and made a face at me. Then she hugged me again, fiercely this time. “It’s so good to have you home,” she said in my ear. Then she hurried back to the kitchen, saying she had to get the roast out before it was burned and yelling again for Dad to get me a glass of wine. I stood in the front hall, listening to them call to each other from separate parts of the house, and closed my eyes for a moment, soaking in everything familiar, awash with contentment.
CHRISTMAS WAS A BIG deal in my house when I was growing up, the one time of year my parents indulged themselves. As I was an only child, my parents actively worked against spoiling me, except at Christmas. I remember many Christmas mornings when I would sneak down the stairs at dawn, the wooden risers cold and hard beneath my feet, and peek into the living room, where the tree, decorated to perfection by my mother, rose over a spreading pile of brightly wrapped presents. Each of us had at least one big gift that sat unwrapped by the fireplace. My mother excelled at finding small, personal stocking gifts—a tee shirt, a bottle opener, a book of poetry—which she bought throughout the year and stored up for this one extravagance.
This year was no different. On Christmas Eve, we went to All Saints Episcopal in Biltmore Village for the Lessons and Carols service, which I had always loved. Mercifully, the church was packed, and we didn’t see many neighbors to whom my mother could show me off, or who would ask questions about what I was doing now. After the service, we drove home and solemnly put out a plate of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa Claus before heading to bed. As I laid my head on my pillow in my old room, which seemed far too small with its dormer windows and the ceiling slanted along the roofline, I could hear Mom and Dad moving around downstairs, putting something together quietly, almost furtively, as if I were five and still in the grip of the Santa myth. In my darkened room, I rolled my eyes and smiled.
The next morning, Mom had to wake me up, which was a definite change from my childhood when I had always been awake at dawn on Christmas morning. She went off to brew coffee and bake sweet rolls while I waited at the top of the stairs for my father, who came out in his bathrobe, yawning. “Merry Christmas,” he managed.
“Merry Christmas, Dad.”
We went downstairs and walked into the living room, and then stopped. In the middle of the room, like a pagan altar, sat an enormous silver gas grill. “Wow,” I said.
Dad nodded, a smile on his face. “Just imagine what I could cook on that,” he said.
“You plan on grilling in the living room?”
Dad gave a slight smile. “Your mother insisted we put it together inside so you could see it when you came down,” he murmured. “Surprise and all. Help me carry it outside later?”
“Coffee’s making,” Mom said, coming in behind us. She looked at me, her face alight with glee. “Did you see the grill?”
Once we had coffee, we commenced the opening of the presents. Mom laughed as she unfolded a gift from me, a red apron with a gold Blackburne lion’s head on it. I’d gotten Dad a nice bottle of Shiraz and a Blackburne baseball cap, which he promptly put on his head and wore for the rest of the morning. Then Mom found another present from me and opened it. Inside was an elegant tablet with raised keyboard buttons like blister packs on pill sheets. My mother glanced at me, a strange look on her face.
“It’s a Kindle, Mom,” I explained. “See, you can download books to it in like sixty seconds. You can carry a whole digital library with you in that one device. Isn’t that cool? I know how you and Dad like to go on trips, and you both read, so I thought—”
Mom exchanged a look with Dad.
“What?” I asked.
Dad reached under the tree and wordlessly handed me a present. To Matthias, the gift tag read, With All Our Love, Mom and Dad. Puzzled, I ripped open the wrapping. Inside, I found an identical Kindle. We all looked at one another and then burst into laughter. When we’d finally settled down, wiping away tears and catching our breath, my mother said, in a reasonable imitation of my voice, “See, you can download books to it,” and we were all howling again.
LATER, AFTER WE HAD cleared away all the wrapping paper, Mom began preparing Christmas dinner while Dad went outside to get some more firewood, and I sat alone in the living room. Someone had turned on the stereo, and Frank Sinatra was crooning “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” I used to hate this part of Christmas morning, with its inevitable sense of anticlimax after the excitement of opening presents. But now I bathed in the post-gift-giving letdown, welcoming it. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been home in three years. Neither of my parents had said anything about it, other than Mom repeating almost hourly how glad she was that I was home. I knew this wouldn’t last, that my parents would at some point gently broach the topic, would ask how I liked teaching, how my writing was going, what I would do next. I had been dreading that conversation, but now I was resigned to it. Let be, as Hamlet said to Horatio. I closed my eyes, listening to Sinatra sing about how we’d always be together if the Fates allowed.
Dad came in, and I opened my eyes to see he was still wearing his Blackburne cap. “Ready to help me move this thing outside?” he said, gesturing to the grill.
“Dad,” I said.
He paused, waiting. Sinatra crooned in the background: “Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore . . .”
I took a breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry that I didn’t come home sooner.” Something hard and hot was in my throat, and then I was weeping. Good job, I thought as I sat there on the couch and cried. I hadn’t cried in front of my father since I was seven and had fallen off my bike, scraping my arm and leg.
My father was never very affectionate, not physically. He would smile and talk and listen, but he wasn’t a hugger like Mom. Now he came over and sat next to me on the couch, and then awkwardly patted me on the back. “Are you all right, Son?” he asked quietly. I nodded, and then cleared my throat and wiped at my eyes. Dad handed me a tissue, and I blew my nose. “Thanks,” I said, my voice thick. “Let’s get that grill outside, huh?”
Dad nodded, and we rolled the grill through the living room and out the back doors of the den onto the stone patio. We didn’t speak about it any more, as if we’d rolled the incident outside, too, and left it in the cold.