In the Melancholy Moonlight, Part 5: Dark Matter

Chapter 219: Tireless Hope

CLAIRE:

My eyes snapped open at 7:46 AM on Christmas Eve, according to my clock. Tenderheart Bear was clutched tightly in my arms, and sunlight was streaming through my window, so I wasn't sure why I felt like something was horribly wrong.

As much as I wanted to just close my eyes and sleep until the holidays were over, I knew I couldn't, so I reluctantly got up and made my bed. I headed downstairs still in my pajamas and found my parents curled up on the couch watching White Christmas.

"Good morning, Claire Bear!" Dad said with a wide smile. "The movie's almost done. Want to join us for the last ten minutes?"

I slapped a hand to my forehead. "Wait, I just realized that I forgot to pack toiletries, I only packed clothes in my duffel. I'll be right back!" And with that, I hurried back up the stairs.

Dad watching White Christmas was one of the few Christmas traditions that hadn't disappeared when Lucy did, because the tradition itself predated Lucy, and it predated me. When Dad was in the Army, long before I was born, he always watched White Christmas on Christmas Eve — no matter where he was or what he was doing, he found a way to watch it somehow. He kept watching it on Christmas Eve after returning from Vietnam as well, because he claimed that the movie was best enjoyed with his girls. No matter how many girls watched it with him. Before Lucy disappeared, we watched it all together, all four of us, while Mom and Dad drank coffee and Lucy and I drank hot chocolate and we all ate too many of Mom's cinnamon rolls. After Lucy disappeared, Mom and I took turns waking up early to watch it with him, so that there was never just one hole, Lucy was never the only one missing from the tradition. It was Mom's turn that year, so I made myself scarce and puttered around upstairs, changing out of my pajamas, brushing my hair, packing my hairbrush, brushing my teeth, packing my toothbrush, et cetera, until I heard activity in the kitchen.

When I returned downstairs, Mom and I were simultaneously swept up into one of my dad's bear hugs, tighter than usual because it was Christmas Eve and we always needed each other to get through the day.

"All packed and ready?" Mom asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, I'm ready whenever. What time is everyone getting there?"

"Everyone's just trying to get there by noon, but Kathryn and Matt getting there around eleven so Patrick can nap in the car and be ready to play — "

"I'll help load the car!" I announced as I raced up the stairs to grab my duffel bag. I placed Tenderheart Bear carefully on top, zipped it up, and hurried back down the stairs, where my parents were still chuckling about my enthusiasm.

School and relationship drama had kept me so busy I hadn't seen my cousin, her husband, or their infant son since Thanksgiving, which meant that he had surely grown so much in the past month that I wouldn't even recognize him.

There's nothing in the world quite like a baby, a new life, to teach you about the meaning of life and the passage of time.

I had always resisted the passage of time to the best of my ability. I did my best to dig my heels in, stand still, stay the same, never change, never grow, never move on, never give up. Because I'd always carried with me the hope that Lucy would come back to me, to us, I wanted everything to be exactly the same as she left it when she returned. I slept in Mom and Dad's bed for a while, not wanting to do anything to disturb the bedroom Lucy and I had shared. The door to that bedroom remained closed — I slept in Mom and Dad's bed so I didn't have to sleep in my own bed opposite Lucy's empty one, I got new clothes and new toys so that I didn't have to go in and retrieve the ones that we had once shared, and when my parents decided that it was time for me to try to sleep by myself again, Dad moved his office to the garage and converted the former office into a bedroom that I could call my own. Our physical space remained untouched. I made sure of that.