I stumbled down the stairs the next morning, realizing it was Christmas morning. I had spent most of the night before at the hospital with my dad, wanting to stay with him as long and as late as possible. I had hoped that my presence there would make both of us feel a little better.

If I had my way, he would have been able to come home; at least for the night. Even with me being there as much as possible, the hospital was still a dark and depressing place. I thought he should be home with his family. My mother however seemed to have made the decision that it would be too difficult on all of us if he came home for even twenty four hours. Dad pretended he didn’t mind, but I minded. I wanted him home.

I crept into my mother’s bedroom, and was hit with the pungent smell of alcohol. I rolled my eyes. Of course while I was sitting faithfully by my father’s side, she was getting loaded.

I climbed onto her huge king sized bed and crawled over the sloppy sheets and covers. “Mom?” I shook her shoulder roughly, shaking the whole bed.

I was seventeen years old. I was far too old to be waking up my mother on Christmas day. “Mom, wake up! It’s Christmas!”
My mom grumbled tiredly, her voice hoarse and gruff. “Just give me another hour, Emma. Please”

“But mom,” I countered. “The sooner you get up and we eat and everything, the sooner we can go and see dad!”

My mother sighed. “I’m not going to the hospital today. It’s too depressing on Christmas.”

I was furious at this. Christmas was supposed to be about family, and here was my mother not wanting to spend the holiday with her husband and her family because being there would be depressing for her? How did she think dad felt? He was the one living in the hospital she found so depressing.

I sighed irritably, sinking my teeth into my lip almost hard enough to taste blood.

“Emma, don’t do that. How many times have I told you to stop biting your lips like that?”

“Can you at least get up so we can open our gifts?” I though if I could at least get her out of bed, I could talk her into going with me.

“Go ahead and open your gifts, sweet-pea. I’ll join you later.” She mumbled, flopping over in bed.

I sighed; so much for the lavish family Christmases of my youth. I didn’t even want to open my gifts now.

I scooted off her bed, jumping around to jostle her sleep as much as possible and trudged unhappily into the empty apartment.

There were quite a few gifts under the tree; I was actually surprised.

I began filtering through the gifts, dividing them into three piles. I left my mother’s under the tree and piled my dad’s gifts in a chair.

I sat cross legged on the floor with my stack of gifts in front of me. I suddenly felt so completely alone. I was temped to load everything into bags and cart them off to the hospital to open gifts with my dad if my mother wasn’t interested. But I knew it would be almost impossible on a bus.

I opened my gifts, almost glad that my mother had wrapped everything so sloppily. I wasn’t particularly impressed with any of my gifts, but I brought the puzzles, journals, books, clothing, CDs and new camera up to my room. I put on the sweater from my grandma in Oklahoma, the jeans from my mom and the necklace from my dad. I put batteries in the camera and put it in my purse.

I ventured downstairs and found the largest empty Christmas bag I could find, carefully arranging my father’s gifts inside.

I left the mess of discarded papers, bags and tissue paper for my mother to clean when she got up, purely out of spite. It probably meant she’d be calling Heidi the housekeeper in to do it for her while she opened a bottle of wine.

I put on my new coat and new boots and carried my purse and my dad’s gifts from the apartment.

I rode the elevator down and even though it would have probably been easier to take a taxi, I waited ten minutes in the bitter cold for the bus.

To be completely honest, I liked taking the bus. It took so much longer as the bus weaved through the city blocks. I had to transfer twice, and with the combined distance and the time it took me to reach Mercy General, it made me feel detached from reality. Like everything with my dad was so far away from what was happening to my mother. It was like taking the time to leave one problem completely before venturing into another.

I was relieved that the bus was empty; clearly no one else wanted to venture out in the cold when they were home with their families on Christmas mornings.

I was envious.

I plastered on a huge smile as I walked into my dad’s room.

He was awake, and sitting up in bed, with his empty breakfast dishes in front of him. “Daddy!” I cheered. I dropped the gifts on the foot of his bed and hugged him tightly.

He hugged me, chuckling. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke, but for once I didn’t mind. “Emma, darling. Happy birthday!”

My smile faded slowly. It clearly wasn’t a good day. He was confused. They must have increased his morphine during the night.

“No, daddy. It’s not my birthday. It’s Christmas.” I told him carefully, sitting on the edge of his bed.

He was pale and sickly, but he was still my beloved dad, and it was Christmas. I wasn’t even sure how many more Christmases I’d have with him.

“See? Daddy, I brought your presents.” I pointed to the bag at the foot of his bed.

“Did you open yours?” He asked. “Did you like everything you got?”

I smiled hugely. A brief moment of clarity, I was sure of it.

“Yes, Daddy, thank you. I loved everything.” I played with the necklace around my neck.

My dad frowned suddenly. “It’s Tuesday, Emma, you’re going to be late for school. You’d better hurry.”

It was Friday and almost noon. “Daddy, it’s Christmas. There’s no school on Christmas day.” I left out that I had been out of school for almost a week for Christmas vacation.

“Oh.” He nodded. “You brought me gifts?” He asked. “Your mother was here last night and brought gifts.”

I knew for a fact that my mother hadn’t been here the night before. I had been. I wasn’t about to confuse him more.

“You look so much like your mother, Amelia.” He placed his hand over mine.

I suddenly felt like crying. He was mistaking me for my mother again; he confused us easily even though we were completely different.

The child in me—the one whom had grown up on sappy Christmas tales—had hoped for a Christmas miracle. At least one good day for him, so we could be a family again. And so I could tell him how much I missed him.

It appeared I wasn’t going to get that.

I reached behind me and retrieved a gift, placing it in his lap. “Here, Daddy. Merry Christmas.”

He appeared confused but started to remove the wrapping paper.

I couldn’t help but fight back tears. Here I was on Christmas with the one person who meant almost everything to me, the person I was loosing faster than I could count.

And I was lonely.

I felt empty and alone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I clambered down the stairs after my dad had come upstairs to shout at me to get myself out of bed for the third time. He claimed he wasn’t going to do it again, and I’d learned a long time ago not to mess with my dad on Christmas.

I found the rest of my family in the kitchen, all dressed and devouring their food at record speeds. Some would think that a family of nine eating like lightening would be something special, but not here. Not on Christmas.

My dad was very strict about Christmas. We all had to be up, dressed, fed and sitting in a circle in the living room before the first gift could be open. And each year we took turns playing “Santa Clause” where one of us would hand out the gifts to the others.

Thankfully this year it wasn’t my turn. I was beginning to hate this stupid holiday.

My youngest siblings were all vibrating with excitement, while my older bother looked hung over and my younger brother looked like he might fall asleep in his scrambled eggs.

“Taylor, Mandy called to wish you a Merry Christmas.” My mom said, feeding oatmeal to my youngest sister, still not old enough for solid foods.

“Twice.” Isaac grumbled. “Got me out of the shower.” He didn’t seem happy about it, but neither was I.

“Is she your girlfriend, son?” My dad asked.

I reached for the carton of milk and poured myself a glass. “No. I can’t really stand her. Small doses, she’s less annoying.”

Isaac grinned knowingly next to me. He knew what she was to me. He had used the term “Booty call” and I was almost inclined to agree. It seemed like an accurate interpretation. She was crazy about me, but for me she was only one thing. I didn’t believe in love, I didn’t believe in the perfect fairy tail my parents had created here. I didn’t believe it for a second.

I ate at my usual speed, and still managed to finish at the same time as everyone else.

We left our dishes and went to the living room, where in a little over an hour we had everything torn apart. Gifts and wrapping were scattered everywhere. I was sure I’d gotten all kinds of cool things, but I could hardly see any of it. I couldn’t help but feel miserable.

When all the gifts were opened, I made the excuse that I was going to bring all of my new stuff upstairs before coming back down to help with the clean up.

I struggled with the arm load of stuff before dropping it on my top bunk.

I didn’t even bother to put on one of my new CDs, I simply shoved a pile of laundry from the desk chair and plopped down, sticking my feet up on the pile of junk on the desk.

I sat for a really long time, just staring at the walls. I was interrupted by a knock at the door, I was half expecting my dad to come in, yelling about my absence from the cleaning ritual. However, the door opened and Isaac came in.

“Hey, man. You okay?”

“Yeah, totally.” I shrugged.

“Does it have anything to do with this Mandy chick?” Isaac guessed. His eyes widened suddenly. “You didn’t knock her up, did you?” He demanded.

I frowned. “No of course not! I’m careful. I mean, she says she’s on the pill, but I don’t trust her. We always use condoms, man. You know that.” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure why I was telling him this.

“But you’re just not happy with her? I mean, you said you don’t trust her…” Isaac began.

“She’s just… vapid. And conceited… and completely obsessed with me. I mean, seriously. She’s already called twice… She’s convinced we’re going to be together forever and have kids and get married and all that bull shit, but I just… I can’t stand being with her for more than an hour. She’s repulsive. I thought I could grow to love her, but I honestly can’t stand her.”

Isaac grinned. “Well, she must be good at something for you to stick around.”

“A few things actually…” I agreed, stone faced. “But that’s not everything. I want more, than that. If there is even anything more than that. I’m still not sure.” I sighed.
“That’s completely understandable.” Isaac agreed.

“I don’t want to give up on Mandy though, until I have something else. She’s like… my back up plan. I can give up happiness for sex right?”

Isaac shrugged. “It can be done.”

I sighed. “I’m a terrible person.”

“You’re not. She must at least sense this…”

“She’s not too smart.” I informed him.

“Oh.”

My cell rang loudly. I picked it up and saw the number. I sighed. “It’s her.”

“I’ll leave you alone.” Isaac grinned. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He smirked.

I rolled my eyes and raised the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, Tay-baby!” Mandy’s sickeningly sweet voice came through the phone. “Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah.” I responded.

“I was kind of hoping I could come over… I don’t really have a gift for you… but maybe you could unwrap me…” I could hear the inflection and the intent in her voice.

I was tempted to say no, but I thought maybe even a little contact might chase away these strange feelings of loneliness. It was Christmas. In a couple hours, the house was going to have fifty people in it. I should be treasuring this loneliness while it lasted.

“Sure. Can you be here in an hour?”

“Absolutely.” She giggled. “See you soon.”

I hung up the phone and leaned back in my chair.

Maybe I was wrong about all this love stuff, but so far there had been no evidence of anything else.

Maybe there was a perfect someone out there for me. The perfect woman just waiting for me to find her and we could live happily ever after.

Maybe one day I would meet her, we would be thrown together by some random stroke of fate.

But for now, I was here, in a house so full of people it might burst at the seams. And there was no doubt about it.

I was lonely.

I felt empty and alone.

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