My sweet surly tween daughters decorate Santa cookies in the cozy kitchen of their best friend
while the car radio sings “Feliz Navidad” to me parked outside. The white string of lights on the
porch twinkle and mock all holiday hopes. Unseasonable warmth arrives late in the 12th month,
windows open, all else closed, cracked, crushed. My fingers clutch a FedEx envelope from the
father-in-law I love, written in divorce-phobic cursive script. You are ruining your daughters’
lives. His holiday gift check instantly shrinks as I shut and bolt this heavy door. The mediator
meets us in the false comfort of her overheated mauve office just hours before Lessons and
Carols — “Silent Night” sung without lights or organ, just small candles dripping white wax near
our fingertips. My parents recommend save-the-marriage books, second chances, one more
turn of the cheek. My own wet cheeks glisten from anticipating unshared holidays, the
dissolution of it all, the dark night, the rain that should be snow.
silence loudly falls
from the wintry sky —
the end begins.
As first published in kerning | a space for words, a space for words no. 2