A Good Family

by A. H. Kim

  “Lo siento mucho,” I say. I give Maria and Jorge a hug and swallow something bitter in my mouth. “I’m so very sorry.” Looking down at my nearly empty cart, with Louis Armstrong’s comforting voice crooning “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” I suddenly remember my Sunday school stories. Christmas isn’t the season of forgiveness. That’s Easter.

  Christmas is supposed to be the season of hope.

  hannah

  thirty-four

  Le Refuge is dark when I get back from shopping. My heart clenches: maybe the electric company turned off service; but no, that couldn’t be it. I made sure all of Sam’s utilities were on auto-pay and connected to my personal bank account. It must be something else.

  I fumble with the mass of keys in my purse before realizing the door’s unlocked.

  “Hello?” I call out, turning on the mudroom’s overhead lights and stamping my boots on the dark gray water-repellent doormat. I’m relieved to see the lights all work.

  “Hello?” I repeat, pulling off my boots and leaving them on the mat before slipping on my trusty wool scuffs. I place the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter and notice the light over the Wolf range is on. The lemongrass-green Dutch oven of beef stew that I left simmering on the stove emits a whisper of bubbles. I open the heavy enamel lid, breathe in the savory steam and turn the burner down a titch before flicking off the light.

  Looking across the kitchen to the great room, the moonlight streams through the wall of windows, illuminating the outline of the Christmas trees. Having four trees may be excessive, but they do look magnificent, especially with the lights all aglow. Someone must have lit the candles while I was out.

  Candles: that’s the thing I forgot to put on the grocery list. I was so upset after talking with Maria and Jorge that I left the grocery without remembering candles. Oh well, we’ll just have to make these last.

  Thankfully, the handmade straw goats that I saved from last year’s Christmas look none the worse for wear, at least to my untrained eye. They smelled a little musty from being in the basement all year, but I gave them a generous dousing of Beth’s pine-scented essential oils, and it brought them back to life.

  I spy a note in the middle of the great room coffee table, a cranberry-scented votive candle serving as a beacon. “We’ve gone caroling!” the note reads. I recognize Claire’s neat, childlike handwriting. Red hearts and yellow stars adorn the green crayon letters. In blue ballpoint ink, Eva has written in delicate script:

  Dear Sam and Hannah,

  The neighbors came by to invite us to go Christmas caroling. We’ll be parked at St. Paul’s Church and walking down First Street, if you want to join us. Otherwise, we’ll be back in time for late dinner and one-gift opening.

  Eva and the girls

  When Sam and I were little, our parents let us open just one gift on Christmas Eve, saving the rest of the presents for Christmas morning. It fills me with gratitude that our Min family tradition has been adopted by the Lindstroms.

  “Sam?” I call out, wandering the darkened halls of Le Refuge. I finally find him passed out in the wrapping room amid a tangle of Target plastic shopping bags and rolls of wrapping paper, a nearly empty glass by his side.

  “Sam,” I say. I kneel on the floor and shake him awake.

  “Wh—at?”

  “The rest of the family has gone caroling in town. If we hurry, we can join them.”

  Sam sits up, rubs his eyes and wipes the area around his mouth and cheek for drool. For all his vaunted handsomeness, Sam looks worse than I’ve ever seen him. I’m reminded of those tawdry gossip magazines that litter the checkout stand with their schadenfreude-fueled covers: “Stars without Makeup!” “Beach Bodies Caught on Camera!” “You Won’t Guess Who This Belongs to!” (Cue photograph of a cellulite-riddled thigh.)

  “Uh, no,” Sam says. “I’ve got to finish wrapping the girls’ presents.” He’s surrounded by piles of plastic encased in more plastic: a pretend cash register with realistic-looking money and credit cards, a “Super Snacking” Baby Alive doll that bears a disturbing likeness to one of those blow-up sex toys, the latest Barbie in “Rainbow Unicorn Princess” flavor. Behind him is a small mountain of misshapen presents that he apparently wrapped before falling asleep.

  “You know, the girls don’t really need more toys,” I say. I pull the cash register closer to me and cover it in glittery snowflake wrapping paper. “In the end, it’s memories that matter, not material objects.”

  “Thanks for that great advice,” Sam responds. “Next year, when the girls wake up to an empty Christmas tree, I’ll be sure to tell them that. ‘Hey, girls, welcome to the year without a Santa Claus! How’s that for a Christmas memory?’”

  My cheeks flush hot.

  “What’s up with you, Sam? Why the sudden outburst?”

  “You don’t know what it’s like for me. You think you do, but you don’t.”

  “So why don’t you tell me about it? Talk to me, Sam. Tell me what’s going on.” I reach over to put my hand on Sam’s shoulder, but he withdraws.

  “Everyone talks about how hard it is to be a single parent, but you don’t really know how hard it is until you’ve done it. I mean, I love them and all, but damn, they’re a shitload of work, the endless cycle of baths and meals and homework.

  “Meanwhile, I work my tail off every fucking day but can’t catch a break. A week doesn’t go by without some creditor or lawyer beating down my door for money. And to top it off, the fucking Lindstrom family shows up on my door every fucking holiday and expects me to play the happy host.

  “‘It’s the memories that matter,’” Sam says, mimicking my high-pitched voice. “Well, memories cost money—money that I don’t have—so pardon me if I’m not in the mood for your sermonizing.”

  “Sermonizing?” I splutter, “I wasn’t sermonizing. All I was saying is that if you spent less money on things like stupid plastic toys or pretentious private school, you’d be able to live within the budget I gave you instead of racking up more debt. Oh, and by the way, I don’t think you’ve been raising the girls entirely by yourself. Most single parents don’t have the luxury of both a full-time housekeeper and nanny.” I deliberately leave myself out.

  “You know I let Maria go months ago,” Sam responds. “You were the one who forced me to do it.”

  “Yeah, because you couldn’t afford it. Speaking of which, I just ran into Jorge and Maria in town. They said you never gave them the bonus or recommendation.”

  “They quit before I had a chance to fire them,” Sam yells. “What could I do? I wasn’t going to track them down and say, ‘Oh, and by the way, here’s a bonus and recommendation from Hannah.’”

  I’m not sure how to respond. I hate when Sam makes sense.

  “Well, you could have given me my money back,” I say lamely.

  “Seriously, Hannah? You want your money back?”

  “No, I don’t want my money back. I’m just saying...” My voice drifts off.

  “What, Hannah? What are you ‘just saying’?”

  As Sam stares at me, my pulse races, and I’m instantly pulled back into that Tiffany store, the glare of the bright lights bouncing off all the glass and chrome surfaces.

  “What I’m saying is I just found out the Tiffany earrings you gave me for my fortieth birthday are counterfeit. They’re not diamonds, and they’re not from Tiffany’s. So, when you said that I was the diamond of the family, what did you really mean? Some cheap and shiny imitation?”

  Sam’s face goes blank for a moment, as if he’s searching his memory banks for what I’m talking about. I can’t tell if he’s pretending, just buying more time to defend himself, or if he honestly doesn’t remember. How could he possibly forget the happiest moment in my life?

  “Oh yeah, those earrings,” he finally says. “God, Hannah, what a disaster. Fucking Alex somehow got involved in
this wholesale jewelry scheme. He convinced me to join him as a minority partner. It turned out the jewelry line was started by Donald Trump’s ex who named it for their daughter, Tiffany. It had nothing to do with the actual Tiffany’s. And then to top it off, we were sued by the real Tiffany’s for trademark infringement.”

  “Why would you give me the earrings pretending they were genuine?”

  “I didn’t pretend anything. It was your big fortieth birthday, but I was broke and didn’t want to mooch off Beth. Alex gave me the starter set as consolation for losing my investment. The earrings were the nicest piece in the set.”

  “But why?” I ask, although I’m not sure what I’m really asking.

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you give me fake diamonds? After everything I’ve done for you?”

  “Hannah, I just told you. It was the best I could do.”

  “It wasn’t the best you could do,” I whisper, choking back tears. “You could have done so much better.”

  “Didn’t you just say to me a minute ago that material objects don’t matter? That it’s all about the memories?”

  I close my eyes, as if I could blot out the memory of that night by the fire pit when Sam presented the earrings to me. As if I could blot out the years of sacrifice and disappointment and loss. Yes, it’s the memories that matter, but now I don’t know whether any of those memories are real.

  And whose fault is that?

  I watch my brother fumbling to put the gift-wrapped cash register on the teetering pile of toys. He reaches for the Baby Alive and looks confused, trying to figure out how to wrap the oddly shaped object. A part of me wants to finish wrapping all the gifts for Sam so we can go out together to meet the girls for caroling. It would be the generous thing to do, the adult thing to do. But right now, a much larger part of me just can’t stand the sight of his drunken face.

  “I’m going to drive into town to see if I can catch up with the family,” I say. I stand up slowly, my poor hips aching more than ever. I head down to the great room. The space is darker now, the cold winter moon having slipped behind a shroud of clouds. The only light comes from the cranberry-scented votive on the table and the Christmas tree candles that continue to burn down.

  For a moment, I just stare at the candles, the flicker a reflection of the anger I feel inside. I think for a second that I should douse them before I leave, but remember Sam is still upstairs. He can do it. It’s about time he took some responsibility. I stride toward the door, eager to join the girls in town, but stop for a moment at the threshold. I turn around to cast one backward glance and admire the trees.

  It really is the memories that matter.

  * * *

  It doesn’t take much time for me to spot Eva, Alex and the girls huddled toward the back of the group caroling at the quaint inn in the center of town. Eva’s daughters are particularly easy to identify in their candy-colored down jackets.

  “Where’s Sam?” Eva asks.

  “He’s staying behind to get some last-minute stuff done,” I reply.

  After a rousing rendition of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” the gracious innkeepers invite the carolers inside for some refreshments. Claire and Ally are thrilled with their Santa-shaped ceramic mugs of steaming cider and homemade gingerbread cookies with gumdrop buttons and raisin eyes, while Alex, Eva and I are content to warm up with a cup of the inn’s famous mulled wine. It’s so delicious that I have two.

  Driving back to Le Refuge, I’m surprised to see traffic backed up.

  “Do you think there’s been an accident?” Eva asks. She knows how much I hate driving alone at night and agreed to ride back with me. I reflexively look at my rearview mirror but don’t see Alex’s car. The girls wanted to ride together in the same car, so we said goodbye at the church parking lot. I’m almost positive they left after us. It takes forever to get the little ones buckled into their booster seats. Still, I say a prayer under my breath.

  The sound of a fire engine siren echoes from the opposite direction. Up ahead are the distinctive blue lights of police. I feel mildly panicky. Perhaps it’s a Breathalyzer stop. I cup my hands around my mouth and breathe, reach down to find my purse and fumble around for the tin of Altoids. A police officer is walking down the middle of the street with a superbright LED flashlight, peering into the cars as drivers roll down their windows to ask what’s going on.

  Up close, I can see that the police officer is young, probably no older than twenty-five. Maybe he’ll be lenient with me, someone old enough to be his mother. “I thought most of the alcohol was burned off in mulled wine,” I imagine myself explaining. Perhaps it would be good to add that we were caroling with the church. That must count for something.

  “What’s going on, Officer?” I ask.

  “There’s a fire at one of the houses on Water Street.”

  Eva and I look at one another.

  “Which house?” Eva asks.

  “The fancy one,” he says. “I think they call it the refuge.”

  The officer’s words hit me hard. I rush out of the car and start vomiting into the trench by the side of the road. The mulled wine comes out looking like blood. Eva parks the car on the shoulder before coming over and wrapping me with her woolen jacket. The young police officer leads Eva and me into his cruiser and drives us slowly past the twisted snarl of traffic. All heads turn as the annoyed drivers try to make out our faces.

  Eva and I sit silently in the back seat. There is a bulletproof glass separator between the front and back of the car. Sitting in the rear of the cruiser with strangers staring at me through the tinted glass windows—it feels somehow appropriate.

  After all, I’m the one who should be in prison.

  As we approach Le Refuge, I see the fiery orange outline of the main house’s roofline against the dark night sky. The wrought-iron security gate has been taken apart, and a hook and ladder fire engine is getting set up on the lawn. Eva and the police officer stand by my side as we watch the flames destroy everything Beth worked so hard for. My eyes sting from the smoke as they scan the devastation, hoping to see Sam’s silhouette emerging from the wreckage. The fire chief takes a moment from his official duties to ask me and Eva if anyone is in the house.

  “My brother,” I say, fighting the urge to run into the flames. “My brother’s in there.”

  As a roof beam falls with an explosive bang, I rush forward, but Eva pulls me into an urgent embrace. I can’t tell if she’s holding me back or holding me together—maybe both. The police officer glances over at me, unsure of what to do next. Even in the flickering light, I can see how young he is. He looks like he barely needs to shave, and his unlined face still bears the hints of baby fat. I suddenly feel protective of his innocence. I turn away from the burning house and walk toward the gravel driveway.

  “Where are you going?” Eva asks.

  “I need to find Alex,” I shout. I start running through the blinding sea of headlights.

  The roads leading up to Le Refuge are a nightmare. One lane of traffic is completely closed, the other is barely moving. Motorists stand outside their cars, craning their necks for a view of the inferno, taking photos with their cell phones or speculating among themselves about what might have happened.

  “Alex!” I yell, spotting Eva’s husband standing next to the familiar Volvo station wagon.

  “Hannah! What’s going on? Where’s Eva?”

  I ignore him and peer through the car windows. Stevie is sitting in the passenger seat, her feet propped up on the dashboard and her eyes glued to her iPhone. In the back seat, Ally is fast asleep in her booster, snoozing along with her two younger cousins.

  “Alex, where’s Claire?”

  “Claire? She’s in the back. In the jump seat.”

  Sure enough, there she is, my precious niece, lying down on the jump seat. She’s got her oversize headphones on,
staring up peacefully at the car ceiling, singing along to a song that only she can hear.

  I don’t know if I can do this. It’s almost more than I can bear. How can I tell my nieces that their beloved father is dead? Claire and Ally have already suffered so much in their young lives: the loss of their mother to prison for nearly a decade, and now this, the loss of their father forever. As I gather up my courage, I’m reminded of those long-ago cold mornings in Buffalo, when I had to get Sam ready for school. I’d stand there in the doorway, gazing at my brother’s small body as he lay in his bed, dreaming whatever it is that little boys dream, and wondering to myself how much longer I could delay waking him up.

  beth

  thirty-five

  “What’re you gonna have for your last meal?” Charlotte asks.

  It’s one week before I have to leave for Alderson, and the two of us are lying in bed at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. I reach over to the room service cart and pull the bottle of Perrier-Jouët champagne from the ice-filled bucket. It’s empty.

  “Hey, you’re dripping water on me,” Charlotte complains.

  I put the bottle back on the cart and lick the droplets off her belly.

  “You should order sushi,” Charlotte continues. “They won’t have sushi in prison.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the puttanesca from Osteria Bellagio?”

  “You know they call it puttanesca because the anchovies and capers taste like a whore’s cunt?”

  “Well then,” I reply, “at least I’m consistent in my tastes.”

  “Whore,” Charlotte whispers into my ear.

  “Guilty,” I whisper back.

  Later that night, I find myself staring into the darkness and crying.

  “What is it?” Charlotte asks wearily.

  “The same old shit,” I reply.

  By now, Charlotte’s gotten used to my periodic emotional breakdowns. They always happen at night, usually after I’ve had a few too many drinks. And they all revolve around Papa.