It is tradition. The daughters unplug refrigerators and kiss secret boys goodbye. I’ll see you in a month, they say. They stuff half-hearted presents into bags and hug roommates. It’s only a month, they soothe. They board buses, welcome artificial air, and crumple into lucid sleep. The daughters dream. They imagine the mother and father waiting at the bus stop, their loose cheeks blithe, their arms waving furiously. You’ve come home, the dad murmurs into the eldest daughter’s hair. You’ve come back. When the wheezing wheels pause on the side of Rt. 17, only a string of peg-legged trees welcomes them; the mother is running late. Despite their dreaming, the daughters expected this. They leave the thick heat of the bus and grab their suitcases from the overhead compartments. For now, the bus stop bench is home. The daughters pass the time with storytelling. Person X drank too much Y and ended up A/B/C. Honest laughter makes the frosty air a bit warmer and the daughters remember that they are sisters. They tell and tell and tell until their lips are numb and the mother pulls up in a slick pick-up. The mother rolls down the window and screams an eager Sorry and the daughters say It’s Okay, letting their chapped hands and red ears explain that it’s not. On Everdell Street the mother puts the pick-up to bed in the driveway and the daughters drag their suitcases across the lawn and into their terra cotta home, realizing that one month is a very long time. Alerted by the creaking front door, the dog hops off its couch pillow perch and greets the daughters’ ankles. Lick, lick she remembers the hands that have gifted treats and jangled a leash. Hello, dog, the daughters coo as they pat her matted ears and tufted tummy. Have you been a good girl? The suitcases are deposited in a pile near the door, the contents belonging to girls who cease to exist on Everdell Street. The daughters take in the room. Cigarette ash still rests on the couch’s armrest, unopened bills from Citibank still hide in the mail spread on the table, and the father is still at work. The eldest daughter frowns. Maybe she had been too optimistic; maybe she had wanted change too badly. The mother has retreated to the living room, her duty done. She types on a laptop, her sweat-panted legs tucked underneath her and taps a cigarette into an old can of Pepsi. The youngest daughter draws in a quivery breath. The eldest leaves for her room. Chilled carpet and the lingering scent of a blackened candlewick welcome her when she steps into the room. She winces, pushing up her sleeve and gripping her forearm, noticing that the room has shrunk. Like an old pair of pajamas, what once had been comfortable is now too snug. Not making a move to turn on the fingerprint stained light switch, she lets the dying hallway light cast shadows on the bed, still unmade from August, and the stack of junk the mother has tossed in the corner. Still. Everything preserved. Headlights swing into the bedroom window and the eldest daughter panics. The father is home. She remembers the smash of scar-bottomed pots on the stove, angry to be awakened and used. She remembers the mother’s stiff spine shivering as she walks around the kitchen, trying not to disturb the working father as he waits at the cluttered kitchen table for his dinner. After darting a furtive glance down the hallway, the eldest daughter presses her door shut. It is time to leave. The window slides up fluidly, used to the eldest daughter’s escapes. She slips out of the terra cotta coffin and pats the pick-up, gently awaking its tremendous engine and reverses out of the quicksand driveway. Let’s go she whispers. And just like that she is back in her own skin. The eldest daughter pulls up to the happy ivy shutters of the friend’s house and makes her way to the backyard where bodies in dark coats and rough jeans are cloaked by protective firs. Her boots flatten icy leaves, announcing her arrival. Arms wrap around her neck and I miss you is pressed into her ear. She loosens herself from the embrace to look at the boy and smiles, grabbing the glass he holds in his hand. Whiskey makes her breath hot and fogs the boy’s glasses as she exhales in the tight winter air. Dampening her cracked lips she confesses I don’t want to be back. He shifts his weight. He understands her sincerity and consoles You’re already here. With a warm hand the boy cups the daughter’s elbow and guides her to the wreath of friends at the edge of the woods, to her real home. When the eldest daughter wakes up, knitted tightly in her bed’s comforter, the critiquing cricket of a second on her watch explains that it’s time for Christmas cleaning. It is tradition. She takes in a deep breath and brings a hand to her forehead, hoping to smooth away the blurred edges of a hangover. The memories of the bus ride home, her escape from the dinner-dance, and the taste of the boy’s raw lips pin her to the bed. Accept and progress, she tells herself. Reluctant but not a coward, she drapes a sweater around her shoulders and shuffles to the living room where the father and the youngest daughter are pretending to dust. Casting an eye towards the kitchen, the eldest daughter sees the mother pressing her knees into the hard linoleum. Wiping the cabinets with a chewed sponge, the mother screams at the cramped wooden spoons and dusted flour canisters about how tired she is, about how many nights she spends consuming passion puckered novels that only suck her dry. She spits between nicotine-eroded sandcastles that she does it all. The daughters and the father sit in the living room deaf and unaffected. The smell of burnt hair escaping the vacuum's dying lungs consumes their attention. # # #
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