. . .
Christmas Eve. On the street where I live, we carol to our neighbors regularly every year. At the end, one family has everyone inside for eggnog. This year is suddenly cold, where before it had been mild, and snow upon snow arrives on the days before Christmas. Cape Elizabeth is going from being one kind of town to another, everyone says. And when they say it they mean there is nothing good to this, and they say it always to the new arrivals, who accept this as a kind of hazing, even as they assume it doesnât mean them. Here in the Masrichsâ house, on a kidney-shaped downturn off our street, Brentwood, these pronouncements are meaningless at the party. We are all new on this street. All our houses are not quite ten years old. During the caroling I had finally put together what another child from down the road had said, about how he could find the bathroom in my house even if he had never been there, because it was just the same as his. There were, I could see now, four or five different plans, used in rotation, so that no matches were visible each to the other. At the Masrichsâ, also a Frontier Colonial, like ours, I sat on the stairs to the side as adults trooped up and down past me, glow-bright cups of eggnog in their hands. Let me give you the tour, Mrs. Masrich said to each newcomer to the house, and so they would go, up and down and around. This is the sewing room, and the bathroom is over here, I hear from the upstairs hall. You can put your coats there.
I have grown two inches in the last year. I have big legs. I look at them a fair amount, amazed at them. My thighs are as big as heads. I think of when I was on vacation last summer with my Grandfather Zhe, to the man who wanted to massage them for me. Iâm a soccer coach back home, you know, he said. You look like a nice husky boy. The hotel where we were staying had a faux-desert landscape, around the pool area, and so we were hidden by a peach-brown dune of cement from the view of my dozing grandfather and siblings. I told him, I donât think so. But thanks. He told me his room number, just in case I felt âsore.â Later that night, in my hotel room, I thought of how I could kill him.
My mother appears in front of me at the bottom of the stairs. She has dressed in a foam-green crew-neck sweater under a loden coat she wears on her shoulders, her blond hair arranged there, pulled back with one barrette to her nape, making her look much younger than most of the other mothers. Why are you here on the stairs, she asks. She settles a hand on my leg.
She asks me something I donât hear over my own thoughts. Iâm sorry, Mom? I ask.
You were looking right at me, Iâd swear, she says, and she grabs my ear, bending it a little toward her. I said, Are you feeling well?
Sure, I say. All this Christmas stuff just depresses me. I really only like the music.
Youâre not very convincing. Youâre so angry these days.
Iâm not. Iâm not angry. I stand up and walk down the stairs to the foyer. See, I say, heading to the main room. See how happy I am?
Thereâs no call for sarcasm. She crosses an arm over her stomach and props up her elbow, her drink resting up near her face.
Hey Nora, come in here. Aphias, come here. My dad comes from around the corner. His face flushed, he takes my mom by the hand. Câmon.
On the television was some footage from the Spirit of Christmas Concert, taken from two years before. The chorus had sung with an adult choir, the Portland Symphony, and a few guest stars from the Biddeford Opera production of
Carmen
. My father had seen my face on the screen and looked for it again. You were right there, he said, indicating the corner of the screen in which my face had appeared. Right there.
Â
3
Â
ENDLESS JANUARY INTO endless February. Sunny days hit the snow and make me hate light, cold that snaps my nose numb and then burns me once Iâm inside. I spend the days
Christmas Eve. On the street where I live, we carol to our neighbors regularly every year. At the end, one family has everyone inside for eggnog. This year is suddenly cold, where before it had been mild, and snow upon snow arrives on the days before Christmas. Cape Elizabeth is going from being one kind of town to another, everyone says. And when they say it they mean there is nothing good to this, and they say it always to the new arrivals, who accept this as a kind of hazing, even as they assume it doesnât mean them. Here in the Masrichsâ house, on a kidney-shaped downturn off our street, Brentwood, these pronouncements are meaningless at the party. We are all new on this street. All our houses are not quite ten years old. During the caroling I had finally put together what another child from down the road had said, about how he could find the bathroom in my house even if he had never been there, because it was just the same as his. There were, I could see now, four or five different plans, used in rotation, so that no matches were visible each to the other. At the Masrichsâ, also a Frontier Colonial, like ours, I sat on the stairs to the side as adults trooped up and down past me, glow-bright cups of eggnog in their hands. Let me give you the tour, Mrs. Masrich said to each newcomer to the house, and so they would go, up and down and around. This is the sewing room, and the bathroom is over here, I hear from the upstairs hall. You can put your coats there.
I have grown two inches in the last year. I have big legs. I look at them a fair amount, amazed at them. My thighs are as big as heads. I think of when I was on vacation last summer with my Grandfather Zhe, to the man who wanted to massage them for me. Iâm a soccer coach back home, you know, he said. You look like a nice husky boy. The hotel where we were staying had a faux-desert landscape, around the pool area, and so we were hidden by a peach-brown dune of cement from the view of my dozing grandfather and siblings. I told him, I donât think so. But thanks. He told me his room number, just in case I felt âsore.â Later that night, in my hotel room, I thought of how I could kill him.
My mother appears in front of me at the bottom of the stairs. She has dressed in a foam-green crew-neck sweater under a loden coat she wears on her shoulders, her blond hair arranged there, pulled back with one barrette to her nape, making her look much younger than most of the other mothers. Why are you here on the stairs, she asks. She settles a hand on my leg.
She asks me something I donât hear over my own thoughts. Iâm sorry, Mom? I ask.
You were looking right at me, Iâd swear, she says, and she grabs my ear, bending it a little toward her. I said, Are you feeling well?
Sure, I say. All this Christmas stuff just depresses me. I really only like the music.
Youâre not very convincing. Youâre so angry these days.
Iâm not. Iâm not angry. I stand up and walk down the stairs to the foyer. See, I say, heading to the main room. See how happy I am?
Thereâs no call for sarcasm. She crosses an arm over her stomach and props up her elbow, her drink resting up near her face.
Hey Nora, come in here. Aphias, come here. My dad comes from around the corner. His face flushed, he takes my mom by the hand. Câmon.
On the television was some footage from the Spirit of Christmas Concert, taken from two years before. The chorus had sung with an adult choir, the Portland Symphony, and a few guest stars from the Biddeford Opera production of
Carmen
. My father had seen my face on the screen and looked for it again. You were right there, he said, indicating the corner of the screen in which my face had appeared. Right there.
Â
3
Â
ENDLESS JANUARY INTO endless February. Sunny days hit the snow and make me hate light, cold that snaps my nose numb and then burns me once Iâm inside. I spend the days
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