The house was a creaky old place. Two floors plus an attic, no sign of civilization in sight, gabled roofs covered with snow, a worn wooden porch with children playing on it—the whole bit. Two of those children were Maggie’s: nine-year-old Katie and six-year-old Lila. The third, whom the other two were in the process of hogtying with tinsel, was four-year-old Chad, Maggie’s nephew and the somewhat unlucky progeny of her recently-divorced baby brother Jackson.
He (Jackson, that is) was unaware of his child’s predicament because he was in the process of trimming the Christmas tree, a task nobody helped him with even though he repeatedly nagged them to. Maggie was busy with the dinner; Grandma had taken a plate of cookies upstairs to her room shortly after lunch; Michelle—the perennially single middle child and Jackson’s other older sister—was taking a very long bath; and of course, the children were playing.
Suddenly, like a racehorse coming out of its stall, Maggie burst out of the kitchen, through the living room, past the front door, and up the stairs in the blink of an eye. A flurry of activity and criticism followed in her wake like a comet’s tail.
“Jackson, all your red balls are on the left. You should space those out. Kids, untie your cousin this instant or there’s no pie for anyone.”
“We don’t like pie anyway,” Katie pouted. She liked pie and her mother knew it so this was a rather futile tactic. And in any case, Maggie had already moved on.
“Michelle, would you get out of the bath already? I need you to hang the stockings.”
“In a minute,” Michelle yelled as she opened the bathroom door. “Jesus, can’t a girl get some privacy in this house?”
“It’s Christmas Eve, honey. We’re all out of privacy. I’m gonna go get Grandma.”
“Wait, wait! Is it okay if I pop out for a few hours? I matched with this guy on Hinge and his band is playing a gig in town.”
“No, you will not!” Maggie exclaimed. “If you skip out on family Christmas time to get laid, I swear I’ll do to you what I just did to the turkey.”
“Ouch. You could have just said ‘no’.”
Grandma was nearly a hundred years old, as far as they could figure out, and experience had taught Maggie that the woman required a soft touch.
“Grandma, open up!” She called out before stepping into the room. She could never figure out why but Grandma’s room always smelled musky and sweet. The woman herself was curled up in bed, wrapped in warm blankets, and smiling like a baby. A half-eaten plate of cookies sat on the nightstand.
“Hey Grandma, it’s time to get up.” Maggie shook her lightly but Grandma didn’t stir. That’s when a horrible thought crept into Maggie’s mind. Quickly, she checked the old woman’s pulse and promptly stepped away in horror.
It took her a moment before she could say anything.
Once she had sufficiently recovered control of her vocal cords, all Maggie managed to mouth was “FUCK!!!”
“You can stop doing that,” Maggie told Jackson as she slumped into a musty old sofa, her head in her hands.
“Oh come on!” Her brother protested. “I just finished moving the balls!”
“Grandma’s dead, Jackson.”
“What? That’s… fuck!”
“That’s what I said,” Maggie sighed, rubbing away at a building migraine. “Can you call Dr. Burke? His number’s on the fridge. Tell him to come over right away.”
Michelle walked in, dressed in her sexiest outfit (red with white trim), topped off with a very stylish Christmas hat. Her perfect blonde curls fell to her shoulders in a golden cascade, bouncing from side to side as she looked at her siblings.
“Who died?” she asked.
“Grandma,” the others replied.
“What? Fuck!”
“That’s what we said.”
She joined Maggie on the sofa, all three of them sharing a moment of silence. And then Michelle broke it to ask her sister a very important question.
“Hey listen, are we still doing family Christmas time? Because it’s like miles back to town and the gig starts in an hour so…”
“Pull your head out of your vagina, Michelle!” Maggie exclaimed. “Grandma’s lying dead upstairs and all you can think about is sex? What’s wrong with you?”
“God, Maggie, I need this!”
“Wait, what do we tell the kids?” Jackson asked.
Maggie sighed and shook her head. “Nothing, I guess?”
“We have to tell them. You know how hard it was-”
“I know, I know. We’ll tell them, okay? It’s just… it’s Christmas. Let’s just let them have tonight.”
The aforementioned kids tiptoed in, wondering what all the yelling was about.
“Mama?” called Lila.
“I’m here, sweetie,” Maggie said as her youngest rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”
“Can we see Santa? You didn’t take us to see Santa this year.”
“Sorry, love, Santa’s probably really busy right now.”
“But I want to see Santa,” Lila whined. “Please? I’ve been really good this year!”
Now what happened next is something that Maggie would regret for the rest of her life. But at that moment, with everything on her plate, she couldn’t help but turn to the absolute worst person she could have approached.
“Michelle, can you take care of this?”
“Really? Me? Sure, I can do that.”
The rest is history. Which we’ll get into in a second.
Nobody picked up the phone at the doctor’s so Maggie told Jackson to take their Grandma’s Volkswagen and drive over to his place. Michelle got busy with her Santa hunt, soon realizing that the only Santa Clauses available on Christmas Eve were those you found on adult websites on the internet. Meanwhile, Maggie managed to fish out an old VHS from the attic, hook it up to an even older TV, and pop in a tape of Home Alone with the first few minutes missing. The children promptly plopped themselves in front of the grainy screen, promising at least an hour of peace for Maggie and just enough quiet for her to call the local priest. Though she lived a rather wild life in the sixties, their grandma was a devout Catholic and Maggie figured she would have wanted a proper church funeral.
The priest, unlike the doctor, did not have big plans on Christmas Eve and was more than happy to come by. Father Bryce, as he introduced himself, was a fairly ordinary-looking clergyman in his early forties. He made all the right soothing sounds and dispensed choice sedatives like “She’s in a better place” and “Heaven just gained an angel”.
“We don’t actually give last rites to the deceased, you see,” Father Bryce explained as they stood over her grandmother’s body. “But I’ll just say a little prayer for now.”
“Who’s this?” Michelle asked, sauntering in.
“Michelle, shut up and let the Reverend pray.”
“Jesus, can’t say anything in this house!”
“And stop that, it’s blasphemy.”
After driving five miles in the snow, Jackson discovered that Dr. Burke wasn’t home. Another nine miles in the opposite direction, and he learned that he wasn’t at his office either.
“Is this the Seymour Hartley Memorial Hospital Christmas party?” asked Jackson. He was at a local drinking establishment, the appropriately named Drunken Ass-head, which is where his sources told him he could find Dr. Burke.
As it turns out, the Seymour Hartley Memorial Hospital staff threw some great parties. Some really great parties. There were nurses doing body shots on the counters; orderlies popping pills; people dancing, people drinking, and some people doing a lot more than kissing under the mistletoe. Jackson found Dr. Burke (an elderly, bespectacled man) shirtless and chugging a beer bong at the back of the bar.
“Dr. Burke? It’s Jackson, Masha’s grandson?”
“Jackson, of course,” the doctor grinned. “Are you here for the party?”
“No, it’s Grandma, actually. She’s dead.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t understand, I’m coming down.” Dr. Burke frantically pulled out an inhaler and took a nice long breath.
“Do you have asthma?”
The doctor shook his head and said, “It’s cocaine. Would you like some?”
“Maybe we should get you cleaned up and go to my Grandma’s.”
“What’s the rush? She’ll still be dead later. Here, take this pill. Doctor’s orders.”
Now, under normal conditions, Jackson would have done the sensible thing and refused to do drugs with intoxicated physicians. However, what you need to remember is that Jackson was recently divorced.
“You need to be more adventurous,” his ex-wife Linda would tell him, fifty-seven times a day. Her other oft-repeated phrases were “Grow some balls” and “Where’s my vibrator?”, so that should explain why they got the divorce. Jackson couldn’t help but hear Linda’s words echoing in his head as he considered the offer.
“Sure, why not,” he said, accepting the strange green pill. It appeared to be slightly glowing.
As Jackson swallowed the pill down with a pint of beer, Dr. Burke cracked a smile, and said, “Merry Christmas, ya’ filthy animal!”
“So are you one of those priests who can’t have sex?”
“Ah, yes, Michelle, right? Yes, I am celibate.”
“That seems so sad,” Michelle pouted. They were sitting on the sofa drinking eggnog
“Michelle,” said Maggie in a dangerously even tone. “Can I see you in the kitchen?”
As soon as they were out of the living room, she whipped around and asked, “What the hell is your problem?”
“I was just making conversation.”
“Is this some sort of addiction? Do you need help?”
“Woah,” Michelle laughed. “Seriously? If anybody needs help here, it’s you.”
“Me? I’m the only sane adult in this house.”
“No, you’re the only adult in this house who hasn’t had any sex in over a year. I work seven days a week, twelve hours a day. Come Boxing Day, bam!” She snapped her fingers. “I’ll be back at the office doing it all over again. So just because your husband died and you’ve been too scared to fuck anyone else, doesn’t mean you get to judge me or my choices.”
“You bitch!” Maggie glowered, tears welling up in her eyes. “He was the love of my life. You can’t expect me to just…just…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, Maggie turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.
“Shall I show myself out, then?” asked Father Bryce as he hesitantly made his way to the door.
To Jackson’s great surprise, he was suddenly face-to-face with an exact duplicate of himself.
“Jackson,” the apparition said. “I have a message for you from your subconscious.
He gulped and asked, “What is it?”
“You’re really fucking high.”
“Hey, Jackson, stop messing around with that mirror,” Dr. Burke said, grabbing him by the jacket and moving towards the door. “I just refilled my inhaler. Let’s go see your grandma.”
“Hey,” Michelle said as her sister walked back into the kitchen, her face all red and puffy. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. I’m really sorry, sis. Something horrible happened to you last year and now Grandma… shit, I can’t believe she’s gone.”
“Me neither,” Maggie sobbed, crashing into Michelle with a hug.
“I’m just so tired,” she whispered through her tears. “I’m tired of losing people and having the whole world act as if I should just move on.”
When their parents died years ago, Michelle was still a little girl and she used to cry all night long. No one could calm her down, no matter what they tried. The only one who could get her to stop crying was her sister, who would wrap her up in her arms and whisper, “I’m here.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Michelle said now, softly stroking Maggie’s hair. “It’s okay, I’m here.”
The doorbell rang and there arose such a clatter as the kids rushed to the door. “It’s Santa, it’s Santa,” they cried as they saw the silhouette of a pointy hat outside.
“I’ll get that,” Michelle told Maggie. “You’ll be okay, right?”
Maggie nodded and let go, moving to the sink to wash her face. Pushing her way past the excited children, Michelle opened the front door to find a handsome man with a red suit, pointy shoes, the body of a Greek god, and a boombox.
“How’s it going?” He asked with a grin. “I’m Santa, baby.”
Ugly. Stupid. Delicious. The turkey, or Meleagris gallopavo domesticus, is the centerpiece of many a Christmas dinner. Maggie was fully aware of the bird’s importance to the customs and economy of her people and stuffed her arm all the way up its hindquarters with the requisite care and diligence. She did not, however, buy it a drink first. As gently as she could, Maggie transferred the turkey into her grandmother’s ancient oven, which had been cooking turkeys since before she had been born.
“Mommy,” Katie said, walking up to her mother just as she was closing the oven door. “Santa went up to go to the bathroom and he hasn’t come down yet.”
“I’m sure he’ll be right down, sweetie. Mommy’s getting dinner ready.”
It was the doorbell again. Maggie answered it this time and found her brother standing on the porch with a wild look in his eye.
“I need a drink,” he said, stumbling into the house.
“Katie,” Chad said, tugging on his cousin’s sleeve as they played with Santa’s boombox in one of the downstairs bedrooms. “I need to pee.”
“So, what do you want me to do about it?” Katie shot back.
“I can’t go up there alone. I’m scared.”
“Look, Chad,” Katie said. “I’ll be honest with you. Life is scary but there are some things you just have to do on your own. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“Then you won’t come with me?”
“No, go pee by yourself, you big baby.”
“Okay,” Chad said with a sigh, warily making his way towards the stairs.
Back in the living room, Jackson had found and chugged the jug of eggnog that Maggie had made for the priest. He slumped back on the sofa, taking long, panting breaths.
“Where’s Dr. Burke?” Maggie asked.
“He’s in the car.”
“Well, why isn’t he coming inside?”
“Can’t. He’s dead.”
“What? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Jackson wailed. “I think he overdosed?”
“How can you not know? And what do you mean he overdosed? You’re telling me that not only is there a corpse upstairs, we now have another one in the car and you don’t know what happened?!”
“I don’t!”
“WHY?”
“HE DOSED ME TOO!”
Before Maggie could process the fact that her brother was high as a kite and possibly involved in the death of a respectable country doctor, she heard Michelle scream, “No, wait, don’t come in.”
This was soon followed by another, more high-pitched scream, after which the tiny figure of Chad came running down the stairs with a huge wet patch on the front of his clothes.
“Daddy,” he cried, grabbing Jackson. “Aunt Michelle is fighting Santa Claus.”
“Chad?” asked Jackson. “When did you grow antlers?”
Bewildered, bamboozled, and practically on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Maggie silently wondered what else could possibly go wrong. And then the oven exploded.
Two hours later, Maggie sat on the front porch, drinking from a bottle of cooking sherry. As it turned out, the escort Michelle had hired to dress up as Santa was a fireman-in-training. He was able to put the fire out and save most of the house, but not the kitchen. Michelle herself had grabbed the kids and carried them outside to safety. She saved your kids, Maggie thought to herself. She traumatized Chad for life but she saved your kids.
“Hey,” Michelle said, walking out and joining her on the porch. “I really thought I locked that door.”
“It’s fine,” Maggie laughed wearily. “Honestly.” She reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand. “I think I screamed my lungs out already.”
“Oh, I’m not surprised,” Michelle said with a chuckle. “You just stood there going ‘AHHHHHH’! Jackson had to drag you out of the house.”
“Where did he go?”
“I took the kids to a hotel,” said Jackson, coming up to the house from the road. “Couldn’t take the car so we had to walk a bit.”
“Thank you,” Maggie sighed.
Jackson shrugged, sitting down beside his sisters. “You feeling any better?”
“Well, I can breathe, so yeah.”
They sat in silence for a bit, passing the bottle of sherry around. Then Maggie asked, “Do either of you idiots have a cigarette on you?”
“I have one somewhere,” Jackson said, digging in his pockets. “But I think it’s soaked in acid. Or my son’s pee. Could go either way.”
“Ew, no.”
“I have a doobie,” said Michelle, pulling one out of her Christmas hat. “What? I’m a lawyer! My life is stressful. Will this do?”
“It’ll do,” Maggie nodded.
Michelle lit it and took a drag before passing it on to Maggie.
“Hey,” she laughed. “Remember when Grandma caught you and me smoking mint leaves in the attic?”
“Yeah, I remember,” Maggie said. “She was all like, ‘Can’t you kids find some decent weed?’”
“What was I doing?” asked Jackson.
“You were learning to use the big boy potty. This was like a month after Mom and Dad died.”
“Heh, except for that day you held it in and refused to go,” said Michelle.
“Oh right. She made me drink like a gallon of prune juice and locked me in the bathroom.”
“Yeah, Grandma was weird,” Maggie chuckled. And then she smiled. “There was this time. I-I was-I wanted a divorce.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s just that… I don’t know, things had just… fizzled out, I guess? We got married when we were eighteen, for crying out loud!”
Michelle asked, “Then why didn’t you?”
“He died,” Maggie shrugged. “But no, that’s not the point. The point is, there I was, at my lowest, thinking about just… packing my bags, taking the kids, and running. And the only one I could think of running to was her. To here. She gave us a home we could always run to. And now she’s gone.”
Their thoughts were then interrupted by a creaking floorboard and a voice saying, “Save something for my funeral.”
“Grandma?! What the fuck? You’re alive?”
And sure enough, there she stood. Her hair was messy, she smelled, and her clothes had cookie crumbs on them, but Grandma was most definitely alive.
“What did you kids do to my kitchen?” she demanded.
“We thought you were dead!”
“And so you decided to burn down the house? Jesus! You kids need my special cookies. They’ll calm you right down.” Grandma stretched and reached for the joint. “I ate some after lunch and had the best nap ever.”
This Holiday Season, light one up with Grandma.
Merry Christmas.
Red Noronha 