Let Go

by Alexandra Winter

“No secrets,” I say.

  Neither of us is tired enough to go back to sleep, so William checks the mailbox, while I crack eggs in the frying pan to make breakfast.

  A cool breeze flows into the kitchen as he closes the door behind him on his way back in. Shivers run through me.

  William calls out from the hallway, his voice strained when he enters the kitchen. “There’s a card here for you.” He hands it to me. “It’s from your Dad.”

  The spatula slips out of my hand, splatting eggs onto the floor. I take the card from William’s hand, and hold it up to read.

  Merry Christmas. It appears I was wrong about William. He actually does love you. Dad.

  PS: You have created a lovely home together, but I would have chosen a different color for your blue closet.

  “The one in the bedroom?” William turns in the direction of the stairs. His voice cracks. “He’s been inside our house?”

  I can’t speak. Rereading the card, it’s obvious. Dad has been here.

  William pulls out his phone to call the police, roaming between the living room and kitchen. His voice is strict. “I don’t care what day it is. This man almost killed my girlfriend, and he’s been inside our house.”

  There is a long silence.

  William shouts through the line. “No, the man isn’t here now. But he has been. If he attacks us during the holiday, that will be on you.”

  There is a pause when the police speak, then William holds the phone out in front of him, screaming. “I pay your salary. You wouldn’t have a job without my tax money.” He hangs up, gripping the phone so hard it seems it’ll burst from the pressure.

  “They’re not coming,” he says.

  He’s been here, inside our house, and he left a card. Why would he do that and not seek me out instead if he wants to scare me? “I’m sure the holiday is a sensitive time for many. We’re probably not the only ones struggling with family issues today.”

  “We need an alarm system.” William doesn’t wait for me to comment, but gets on the phone right away. Three attempts later with different suppliers, they all end in the same message: We are closed during the holiday. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

  I prepare a new batch of eggs, and we eat breakfast in silence until William notices the time. “We’re running late. My parents will expect us soon.”

  I shower first and put my purple dress on while William occupies the bathroom. Evaluating myself in the mirror, Grandmother’s voice pops into my head: “It’s important that a young lady knows how to represent herself.” I shake my head to remove her from any thoughts of today. I think of Nana only, who doesn’t bother with what others think. “William?”

  He opens the door, steam flowing out from behind his naked body. He’s gained weight and appears more padded now than when we first moved in here. He wraps a towel around his waist and walks over to the underwear drawer next to the window. “Throw a scarf over it or a jacket. You’ll be fine.”

  It takes me two seconds to register that he’s referring to my dress. “It’s not the dress I want to talk to you about.” I change into white pants and my favorite red sweater. “Would you be terribly upset if I celebrate with Nana tonight?”

  “But my parents are expecting you. Us. Together.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve, and I don’t want Nana to be alone. I don’t think I could enjoy myself, knowing she’s by herself.”

  “Can’t you say hi, wish her Merry Christmas on our way over?”

  Looking at him, I’m giving in and recalling how Mom would surrender to Dad.

  I could.

  Dad would ask Mom once, then again, and again, until finally she caved. Images of Mom’s beaten face flash before me, and I straighten up. “I was asking to be polite. Not for permission.”

  He exhales loudly, then looks outside at his car, cushioned in by the thick layer of snow. “I don’t want to stop you from being kind, honey.” He pulls on a pair of jeans and the green sweater he wore the first time we kissed. “Wait here.” William walks downstairs, then the front door shuts behind him.

  Through the window, he pushes snow off the car door with his sleeve, only to curse at the white dust as it fills the back seat when he opens it to take out an emerald green paper bag. William sweeps the snow out with his hands, returning to me with them icy blue and wet. “Your gift.”

  I glance into the bottom of the bag where a small ring-sized box wrapped in emerald green paper with a gold bow on top makes me flinch like it’s a snake ready to attack.

  “It’s not what you want, but I really think you should have this.”

  A thousand questions fight for my attention, shrieking at me from within: Is this the ring I tried on? How much was it again? Is it an engagement ring? Is it a ring at all or am I going insane? If it is the diamond ring I tried on at the jewelery store, what do I do? How should I react? Should I smile? Jump for joy? Do I feel joy?

  “Why don’t we have some champagne.” I walk over to the refrigerator, get out a bottle, and refuse to let him answer. “It’s Christmas Eve after all, and we won’t be able to have a toast and wish each other a Merry Christmas at dinner.” I push the glass into his hand. “Merry Christmas.” I shoot mine down. The bubbles force their way up my nose, tingling, stinging. I clasp my fingers over my nose to stop it, but it’s too late. My body cramps together, forcing me to cough.

  “Are you all right?” William takes the glass from me. “You should come with me after all tonight.”

  “No!”

  “Calm down. You have the most absurd reactions to gifts, you know that? Now open it.”

  “No.” I can’t say anything else, and I’m struggling to find a reason not to. If this is an engagement ring, I’ll probably throw up at the sight of it, then explode. I don’t want that today. “I want to open it with Nana, after dinner, like we always open gifts after dinner. Keeping with tradition,” I say.

  If this is an engagement ring, then it’s an ultimatum for me because I’ve been too clear about where I stand on marriage for it not to be. It will mean that I either have to marry him, or we’re over, and I don’t want us to break up.

  William looks suspicious, but shrugs after a few seconds. “I’ll see you later then. Tell Nana I said hi. Love you.” He kisses my cheek, then leaves.

  Waiting to hear the car drive off, I stare at the green box. I remember hearing about a woman receiving a cake from her boyfriend. On it were the words Will you marry me? She ate the whole thing to make it go away, and right now, I feel just like that. Except, this is inedible.

  William will ask about it in a few hours, and I have to say something. I grab the box to get it over with and rip the paper off. But then I freeze. At this moment, I’m in a relationship, and if this is an engagement ring, seeing that ring means we’re over. I’m not ready for that. I toss the box back into the paper bag and place it on the kitchen counter. Right now, it’s like a bomb sitting there ready to destroy my life, and I have the power to choose when it explodes.

  I put Nana’s tickets in my bag, throw on my down coat, knitted hat, gloves and moon boots. Staring back into the kitchen at the paper bag taunting me on the island counter, it’s like a bus is in the room, roaring, about to release the brakes and run me over. I grit my teeth together, stuff the gift into my bag, and walk over to Nana’s.

  I need her support for this explosion.

  A CHRISTMAS GIFT

  “Amalie?” Nana beams. “What a pleasant surprise. Come in from the cold.” She pauses. “What’s wrong?”

  Of course she notices right away I’m stressing out. “Merry Christmas,” I say. Handing her gift to her. “Can I celebrate with you?” I wiggle out of my armor of stuffed outer garments. “Do you have any wine?”

  As if alcohol will help me out of this predicament.

  I don’t care.

  When I follow Nana into her kitchen, the scent of pine in the house calms me. Passing her living room, I notice the stars lighting her windows. Golden stars, with
small holes spreading the light from the light bulb inside. Like Mom used to have. “You hung them by yourself?”

  Nana scoffs. “Yes, my darling. I do so, every year, and have been doing so since before you were born.”

  “Sorry, I just thought…”

  “That my breasts would stop me?” She pours red wine into a kitchen glass and hands it to me. “I do have to admit, the pills I must take make life difficult. Imagine waking up one day with only ten percent of the energy you usually have.”

  She has cancer, and I’m stressing out about a Christmas present.

  I must be the most selfish person on the planet. I sip my wine. Nana heads into the living room, and I follow close behind.

  “Probably a bit like I’m feeling now. I don’t know what to do.” I pull out William’s present and hold it out in front of Nana. She hums while sinking into her armchair facing the Christmas tree.

  “Have you opened it?”

  I shake my head. “But he made me try on a ring in Oslo, talking about marriage and kids. He has to know I’m not ready for all that by now. I’ve told him so many times.” I can’t sit, so I walk around the living room, to the door then back to her, trying to toughen up enough to open the box.

  Nana takes her glasses off. “And you want to continue to guess, dreading it is a ring when it might be a bracelet or a necklace.”

  She’s right. This is insane.

  William knows me well enough by now to know what will happen if he buys me a ring, and he wouldn’t do that on Christmas Eve. He won’t force me to choose.

  Nobody’s that cruel.

  I sit on the couch. Take the velvet jewelry box out of its bag. “It does look like a ring box, right?”

  Nana doesn’t respond.

  It can be anything. Maybe he’s joking and got me tickets for a play or something and thinks it’s funny to pretend it’s jewelry.

  It’s not funny.

  I can’t make myself open it, and it’s frustrating me so much that the room spins. “We’ve only lived together for two months. If it’s a ring, it’s insane!”

  Nana places her glasses back on her nose. “Amalie. You don’t know what it is?”

  “It’s something I don’t want.” I sound crazy. But as much as I want to open it, get it over with, I can’t get myself to do it. “I miss my old life.” No matter what is in that box, it will change our relationship. “I never said I wanted any kind of jewelry. He knows what I want. I want to design again, take up new classes, go to Porto.” Just looking at the box is changing everything. “I’m tired of change. I want to go back to the way my life was before Dad’s attack.”

  “Why is that?”

  I clear my throat. “It was a lie, but I liked that lie. Attending my classes, dreaming of winning the scholarship. Thinking Dad cared about me, having Mom around. I miss her.”

  Nana nods. “I do too.”

  I glance around the room where I would play as a child on the dark wooden floors, hide behind the orange curtains, and help cook in the kitchen. This is a home, with memories, love in every scent, floorboard, and wall. The house I own with William is only a house, still smelling of paint, and so far without one single happy memory I can think of. Maybe it’s because I’m scared, desperate to lessen the blow if it is a ring, and William forces me to choose between being married to him and moving out. “I miss having a real home.”

  What am I saying? Nana’s lived here most of her life.

  “Of course, you don’t relate. You have a home here.”

  “Please, do not explain to me what my feelings are. You may ask about them, but by telling me, I can guarantee that you are wrong.” Nana sighs. “We both share your mother’s house as our home. Each childhood memory I have is in those walls. I grew up there too, you see. When your mother was born, the feeling only grew deeper into its walls, rooting there, too deep for me to dig up.”

  “Exactly. And now I have no roots anywhere.”

  Nana glances around the living room. “This house. I had to work hard to make it a home. Roots need time to grow, and they must start from a happy memory.” She looks at the jewelry box in my hands. “Which might be what William is attempting to give you. He did tell you he wanted marriage and children from the beginning, did he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you believe him?”

  I itch to move. “I did believe him. But I never thought it would be so soon.”

  Hearing myself say the words out loud, I can only imagine what Nana is thinking. Of course I knew. That was why he moved down here. To settle down. Yet I didn’t want to believe that, because I want him to want the same things as me. For us to align our lives, become one together without one of us having to give in to the other.

  The scent of cooked pork oozes from the kitchen. Nana rises from her chair and offers me her hand. “Dinner is ready.”

  Knowing I’ll cry if the gift is a ring, I leave the box on a pillow on the couch and follow her into the kitchen. She hands me a plate, and we set a place for me with a white fabric napkin on the mistletoe-embroidered cloth and a view of the Christmas tree in the living room.

  Nana puts the potatoes, brussels sprouts and pork on the table. “It is quite peculiar.” She pauses, then pours the gravy into a saucer. “How we block our own happiness, by longing for a history we can no longer achieve.”

  I can’t help but think of Mom. I long for her to become the person she was before, and for her to allow me to, as well. “It was so much better before. I guess that’s why we do it.”

  “Me too.” Nana pours me some more wine, and it’s only now I notice, she has water. She sees my observation. “Bad for the cells. Alcohol that is,” she says.

  “So, you’re changing too,” I say. Yet here I am, demanding everyone to stay the same way they always have and refusing to change myself. A CD of the boys’ choir singing Christmas songs plays in the background. “Everyone’s changing but me.”

  While adding meat and vegetables to my plate, it’s like I’m in a trance with a thousand thoughts rushing through my mind. Mom’s different, yet I’m not changing with her. Nana’s changing her diet, has had surgery, and lost her husband. Mom met Dad when she was trying to make something of herself, and she now dresses like his mother. Mom’s concerned with what everyone thinks of her and does her best to keep her façade like his family does. She’s distancing herself from Nana because she’s embarrassed by her and doesn’t want to be like her.

  I have to become what Mom wants me to be, how she wants me to look. I must become Erica. “I’ve tried to make Mom like me by doing everything I know she appreciated before. That’s not working. She’s a changed person. Why haven’t I thought of this earlier?”

  Nana adds sauce to her plate and hands me the bowl. “I do believe you might be missing a crucial part in this. To be yourself. That is enough, Amalie. You are enough.”

  “No. I’ve tried that. I must become what she would like me to be. I’m sure that will work. Dress like she would want me to, make her proud of me. Make her wish I could be her daughter. Want to remember me.”

  I barge into the living room and open the jewelry box, no longer afraid of its contents. Staring down at two diamond earrings, I sigh. “It’s not a ring.”

  He does love me, and this is his way of showing me he’ll wait.

  Although I haven’t said it yet, at this moment, I love him too. I knew he’d slow down.

  I bring them back to the table to show Nana.

  Inside the lid, William has written: “Two perfect diamonds representing two people, perfect for each other.”

  I remove my silver hoops and replace them with the two diamonds.

  We’re not perfect yet, but let’s try.

  Nana and I finish our meal, then bring our coffee to the living room. Nana sits back down in her armchair, and I lean back on the sofa. Outside, the snow has ceased falling, and the wind colors the windows white.

  “Merry Christmas.” I hand Nana her prese
nt.

  She unties the bow, picks off the tape piece by piece until two tickets reveal themselves. She adjusts her glasses and mouthing the destination to herself, her hand goes to her chest. “You and I?” Her glasses flow up with her smile, and she corrects them down to her nose.

  I take her hand. “I would love to see at least one dream come true in this family.”

  Her eyes well, flood over, and tears run down her cheeks. “I am going to Porto. Thank you.”

  Half an hour later, Nana is too tired to stay up, so I tuck her in, clean up, and get dressed to go over to check on Mom. I receive a text from Mr. Jensen wishing me a Merry Christmas and informing me that Mom is spending the night at his house, so I head home knowing she’ll be safe.

  When William peeks into the bedroom, I’m already in bed.

  He whispers. “Are you sleeping?”

  Pushing the duvet down, I reveal my smiling face. “Thank you for my earrings,” I say.

  “Relieved it wasn’t a ring?” He undresses in front of the bed.

  I lift my duvet to invite him in, and he crawls up between my legs ending up on top of me staring down. My adrenaline is rising. “Ecstatic.”

  He laughs. “At least you have something you can tell people I gave you.”

  With his weight on top of me, his soft skin, knowing we have the chance to be great together, my body tingles with excitement. After trying several times to make sex work for both of us, tonight has to be the right time for us to connect as we should. “There’s something else you can give me.”

  I bump his body, so he falls back onto the bed. While kissing his chest, I talk in my utmost sensual voice. “Let’s play until we both are left shaking in pleasure.”

  William grabs my arms, flips us around. Then slides back and covers himself under his duvet. “Not tonight. I’m tired and...”

  I stroke his stomach playfully with the tips of my fingers. “What?”

  “You have to figure out what works for you. I’ve tried everything, and it’s too much of a hassle really.”