Despertar

a silent night

Christmas dinner 2016 is, for the very first time ever, hosted at my house in Northwest. My chance to play hostess, to prove I actually know how to cook something.

Knowing what a ponderous charge this is, my mom drove out yesterday and spent the night helping me cook, clean, decorate. For nearly twelve straight hours she moved through the house very efficiently, spotting little jobs to be done in every tiny corner and compartment, it seemed. The hard jobs she kept for herself (stuffing the turkey, seasoning the Vidalia casserole, researching diabetic desserts for our more aged relatives); she gave me the mindless, tedious jobs requiring a careful hand (washing the wineglasses--a wedding present from my great-aunt, so we have to use them--and shaving out a bowlful of orange zest); to my well-meaning but domestically incompetent husband, she delegated all the leftover throwaway tasks (queuing the preselected Christmas playlist on our sound system, et cetera).

Mom has seated herself just to the left of the head of the table, ostensibly leaving that seat for me but strategically positioned right by the door to the kitchen so she can run back and forth to check the oven, replenish drinks. She is the true hostess of this gathering every way except in name, and she wears it well. Beaming, her silver-streaked hair freshly straightened and pulled back with a mature elegance she's just growing into. She is sixty and proud of me, finally. She likes the husband I chose, the neighborhood I chose. She's pleased with the care I take changing the decor to suit the seasons, the plants I keep in perfect health in every sunlit corner.

To her left is my beautiful Aunt Susan, escorted by her new husband, a handsome West Indian gent in his early sixties. If recovering from her contentious divorce took a weirdly long time (twelve years, Jesus, each one punctuated by terrible boyfriends who turned psycho when she wouldn't commit), this new guy is worth it. He is an academic and a spiritualist, supportive of her organic lifestyle, her karate. He never raises his voice to her and he treats her single incorrigible daughter with, at minimum, great dignity. (That daughter, twenty-two and one semester out of college, has chosen a month-long trip to Europe over Christmas with her lovestruck mom and stepdad, go figure. She isn't here, though she promised me, by email, she'd be around to help me think up Christmas recipes.)

My grandmother is still upright, still completely self-controlled. At eighty-three, she has earned the right to stay parked in her chair throughout dinner. She doesn't help with the food, but she does compliment every aspect of the evening, calling me my Shanny, even though I'm thirty-one and belong to someone else, technically.

Aunt Ruth and Uncle Franklin are subdued, their faces drawn. Still recovering from the death of their daughter, claimed two years ago by a messy knot of obesity- and arthritis-related complications, they can't seem to settle on a lasting party line. Are they traumatized by the unnatural tragedy of burying a child? Or was it a great relief to see her forty-odd-year struggle finally come to an end? On a macro level, they are stoic, their lives purposefully rearranged to reflect the lessons all they now know. On a micro level, in the smaller moments, chatting with relatives, they take their emotional cues from each other. When Ruth is cheerful, Franklin laughs, makes jokes. When Franklin frowns, Ruth limits her words, spitting them out one at a time like olive pits.

Their other daughter, Erin, lives, and loudly. She is flanked by her second husband and her teenage son, two large males dedicated to keeping her satisfied. The son has grown out of his babyhood chubbiness and is now just solid, tall for his age, the perfect candidate when it comes time to put the heavy leaves in the center of the table. He doesn't know it, having never met his biological father (who died before he was born--a freak asthmatic episode that never should have defeated such a gregarious thirty-one-year-old), but this strapping young guy is headed toward a stocky adulthood, maybe even a touch of the fatness that runs on both sides of his family.

He worships my brother, Chad, Chad being the next-youngest male member of the family, and generally adorable. Chad sparkles in his handsome outfit, his gold Polo, cool slacks. His hair is freshly cut and he looks every bit like the rising young executive he is. At twenty-eight, his incredible elan has taken on epic proportions, is really more of a science than a gift from God, anymore.

Because of this, Chad is having problems with his wife, Nina, the high school sweetheart who finally put an end to eight years of on-again/off-again bullshit by threatening to leave if he didn't marry her. She's still beautiful, still his dream girl and his perfect complement, but two years playing wife to my brother's tremendous ego is taking its toll on her. She's developing hard edges, showing her less refined roots by snapping at him a little too often. She doesn't like the way he ignores her at dinner, talking to relatives he hardly ever sees instead of playing ambassador to her uneasiness. Nina's response is to ignore Chad, and everyone; to focus her attention instead on the baby on the carpet beside her chair, a chubby butterscotch boy with my brother's bright eyes. Baby Ocean is ten months old now, and charming, happy to be passed from the arms of one relative to another's, but equally happy to crawl around unattended, grabbing at things. He is, sometimes, the center of my mother's world, the only person she sees in this bustling room.

My husband, transporting a handful of trivets from the kitchen to the dining room table, doesn't see Ocean burbling on the floor. He almost trips over him but catches himself in time, losing the trivets in the process. They clatter to the table, knocking over two wineglasses, causing Uncle Franklin to drop a hand heavily onto the corner of his plate. The plate tips and slides off the table, lands on the floor beside Ocean, startles the baby, draws forth an indignant shriek.

Trivets forgotten, my husband reaches down, scoops up the baby, smiles broadly to show him everything's fine. The room is silent, watching. Ocean's lip quivers as his little mind works its way around the situation. Nina sucks her teeth, loudly. Chad reaches. Mom reaches.

Ocean lets out a breathy giggle, evaluates his options, buries his face happily into my husband's sweater.

I guess I'm glad I picked him.