With Love, Silvia. [✔️]

Chapter 27 Christmas

The next few days fly by and before I knew it Christmas had arrived. I wasn't expecting much this year considering Mom was gone and I had barely gotten to know my dad. So I was pleasantly surprised to wake up to 3 presents under the Christmas tree.

I smiled at Dad who gestured for me to open them. I started with the smallest box, which I opened and found a locket inside with a picture of both Mom and Dad on their wedding day. I put it around my neck and swear to never take it off.

The next gift is clothes. It contained a denim shirt, and high waisted skirt. Dad explains they were something to wear on my first day back at Birchwood, which I had completely forgotten about until he brought it up again inducing a mountain of worry on me.

I moved on to the final present, which was a sketch pad and a set of colored pencils.

"I know you're more of a writer, but I found that drawing relieves my sadness. I had a whole sketchbook when I went missing. I thought you could give it a try." He says.

I smile at him in gratitude. I begin to sketch that very instant. At first I begin to recreate the firefly drawing in my journal, but I decide to draw a butterfly instead. I spend an hour on that drawing, and made all of my new colored pencils dull as I used every color of the rainbow on it's wings. I add splash looking marks in every color to make it seem as if the butterfly had beat it's wings and sprayed color everywhere. Dad beams at my work and hangs it on the refrigerator.

"It seems like we have an artistic gene in the family." He says staring at it.

"It really does help, almost as well as journaling." I say hugging my knees to my chest.

I imagined what Mom would say if she were here. I wonder if she would jump in and draw with me because she was a great artist too. I pretended that she was still here with us, that she was cooking the turkey in the stove right now, and we would go eat it on the couch together and watch White Christmas. But pretending made me sadder, because I really wanted to believe it was all true, and that she wasn't dead at all.

I pour myself a glass of eggnog Dad and I bought at the store and try to chug down the lump in my throat. I drink four glasses until my urge to cry is replaced with the urge to puke. I lay on the couch staring up at the ceiling. Dad walks in and announces that we are going out to eat.

"Where?" I ask.

"China Town. They have good Chinese buffets there." he said.

Was he crazy? Chinese food on Christmas? But I shrugged and went to get my coat on.

I find my cellphone in the pocket of Mom's jacket which was what I planned to wear. I picked up my phone and decide to wish Emma and her family a merry Christmas. I do the same to Iris and Wes, then pull on my coat and meet Dad down in the parking lot.

Our actual car was shipped in, so the comforting minivan was gone. We head off to China Town, which takes longer than usual because the traffic is ten times worse of Christmas. When we come to a dead stop, Dad begins a conversation.

"So how are you holdin' up sweetie?" he asks drumming his hands on the wheel.

"Fine I guess. It's just weird not having Mom here. I think she would have really liked Chinese take-out for Christmas." I say with a smile.

"That's my Jenifer." he says, but he almost sounds sad.

We're silent the rest of the way.

When we get to China Town, Dad pulls into Lee Sue's, which is surprisingly busy. We get a table next to a giant gong. The waitress gives us our menus and we both negotiate on what to order. We settle on cooked duck, and edamame as a side dish. I wanted sushi, but Dad was reluctant.

"Why do you want to eat raw fish?" he asked turning up his nose.

I roll my eyes and sip the water I got. I feel my locket jingle when I move my neck.  

The waitress comes back with our edamame and refills my water. She tells us that our duck is almost ready. I dig in and grab the green stalks filled with little beans and puncture it's oddly fuzzy outside with my eye tooth. I suck all three pea like things from the opening and move onto another.

"You know that there is another way to do that?" Dad says holding up a piece.

I watch as he peels the little stem of the stalk down the middle and all the beans spill out and he picks them up and eats them.

"Interesting." I say. "But biting into a furry green stalk is more my type." I say and continue to eat them.

A few minuets later our waitress came back with the duck. I screamed, (yes an actual scream) when I notice that it seriously looks exactly like a duck, and I can even see it's eyes. My scene reminds me of the part in Christmas Story when Ralphie's mother freaks out about the duck head.

Dad chuckles and the waitress shakes her head and marches back into the kitchen.

"It's so...."

"Intact?" Dad finishes for me.

"Yes." I mutter and watch as our waitress returns with a cleaver and chops it all up for us.

I would've never thought that eating a roasted duck would taste good, but it was one of the best things I've ever had on Christmas day, and that is saying something because Mom's turkey was really good.

After a while we're stuffed and half of the oddly gigantic bird remains in front of us. We have someone box it up for us and hit the road once again. We return to the apartment, but Dad tells me to dress up because there is another surprise in store for me.

So I obediently do, and pick out the black lace dress I bought just a month before Mom passed away. I was going to dress up like a vampire for Halloween that year and take Molly (my other neighbor) around the building to trick-or-treat and I thought that they dress would be a perfect costume. Plus it was classy enough to wear to a formal event as well.

Finding shoes is the challenge. The shoes I bought for my costume were lace up Converse and I knew that I needed something different, like heels or ballet flats but I had none. So I snuck into Mom's old closet and looked around for some shoes. I found some black heels that looked beautiful with my dress and decided on those.

For my hair I simply run a brush through it, and notice that it looks to plain and curl it a few times with a curling iron. When I was done, Dad was by the door ready to go. We walked down to  the car and I jumped in excitedly.

"Now will you tell me where we are going?" I ask breathlessly.

"Wait and see." is all he says.

It seems to take forever, but we find ourselves driving down Broadway and I knew where we were headed. We parked and walked up to the theater which had bright lights all around it and huge billboards on it's walls displaying the shows playing.

I was going to see a show on Broadway!

Dad handed me a ticket which read, SEAT 4 ROW G SHOW: PETER PAN my hands shook with excitement. When I thought that this day couldn't get any better, I felt a small tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see familiar faces.

Iris and Wes Biano.