After You

Jacob

Dear Alfie,

I was going to stop writing these letters after our birthday. It felt like a nice place to wrap everything up and start to move on. I managed two weeks, and I really felt like my outlook was starting to change.

"Driving Home For Christmas" came on the radio and screwed that idea up. Now, instead of doing my homework, I've spent the last two hours with the song on repeat. I keep laughing when I remember how you used to sing "top to toe in Tippex", and you were genuinely surprised when Dad told you those weren't the actual lyrics. Then I start crying.

Jesus Christ, I'm pathetic. Can you imagine walking into my room and finding me sobbing to Chris fucking Rea of all things? I'd never live it down. It's one of the few times I'm glad you're not around.

No it isn't. That's a lie. I'm never glad that you're not around.

Christmas is going to be fun. I'm trying not to hold it against you, Alfie, but it's really hard. It's going to be so miserable. It's December 4th and we haven't put the Christmas tree up yet. You were always the one pushing to do it on the first, and I keep holding out hope that Mum or Dad will suddenly remember and reach the tree out of the attic, but part of me thinks we're just not celebrating Christmas this year.

I don't care about the presents or the food or anything like that, but we need to acknowledge Christmas. We can't pretend it isn't happening because you're not here. Christmas meant so much to both of us. I think we need Christmas more than ever.

Remember that Christmas when we were nine? Dad had been made redundant at work, money was tight, Mum was taking all the overtime shifts she could, but it meant they hardly ever saw each other, and they started arguing. They slept in separate bedrooms and shouted at each other all of the time, and we were convinced they were going to divorce. We started making plans about which twin would go with which parent – we decided that I'd go with Dad, because Dad would remember to take the Playstation and that was really important to me at the time, because I was a stupid kid.

Then Christmas happened, and Mum and Dad put a brave face on it all for us, and we had an amazing Christmas. It was like they went out of their way to make it incredible, because they thought it would be the last one we'd all have together as a family. On the day all the offices opened after New Year, someone called up to offer Dad a new job, and the aguing stopped. Everything went back to how it was before. In hindsight, it's the job offer that helped things to improve. There was money coming in, Mum cut her hours back down and we could spend time as a family instead.

In our little nine-year-old brains, the saving grace for our parents' marriage was that Christmas, wasn't it? And from then on, we were both insistent on going all-out for Christmas, just in case their marriage was in need of festive counselling. You were particularly strict about it. I remember you crying when Ashleigh Vernon told you that Santa wasn't real, because you thought that if Mum and Dad found out, they'd be devastated and they'd get divorced for sure.

All this reminiscing and shit; this isn't me. What have you done to me?

Jacob