On the first Friday of December, Lin tells us to put on our coats and hats after dinner. He has a surprise for us. Vanessa says she has to wash the dishes, Sebastian says he has a standoff between two toy dinosaurs to monitor, and I have an evening nap to take. But Lin insists that we will enjoy whatever devious little pilgrimage he has planned.
The city at night. People are either tired, asleep, or charged entirely on alcohol, flying through the streets with no judgment to stop them. The subway isn't as packed as it is when I go to or from school, just a few yuppies and upper-middle class parents with Toys r us bags from early Christmas shopping. Sebastian brings along his Chuggington figurine. Vanessa wraps a scarf around her head like those 1940's movie stars. Lin doesn't bring his earbuds on the train. That's how I know he's serious. No 2pac, no distraction. I tie and untie my boots, then tie the laces into a tower of double-knots. It's a treacherous fifteen minutes to Midtown.
We get off at Grand Central and take a taxi six blocks North. The city is frozen. Must be twenty-something degrees. I lean my forehead against the taxi-window. All those people, NYU students going to celebrate the season with a healthy dose eau de jocque, or jolly old couples on their way home from dinner with their grandkids. Sebastian hums Mozart under his breathe. Lin keeps looking back at us from the passenger seat, like he's scared we'll put his idea on blast and ditch through the windshield. At one point, he reaches back and takes Vanessa's hand. She pouts. "I really had to do those dishes."
She's delighted, though.
We get off on fifth avenue, where long strings of Christmas lights web from building to building and wreathes are hung on the street lamps. I can smell the syrupy pine resins from the sidewalk. Sebastian holds Vanessa's hand when we cross the street. Lin gallops ahead, going, "Come on, come on, we'll miss it!" I lag behind and pull at my scarf until it becomes a boa constrictor around my neck. Sebastian screams back at me. He sounds eerily like his father. "Come on, come on!"
We stop at Rockefeller plaza, and there it is, towering over the city and scraping the sky, the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Pines burst from the branches in tufts. The tree looks like some God that keeps watch over the world from the heavens over the city, makes sure that the kids eat their vegetables and the sick take their medicine. Hundreds of families stand in clumps and marvel the scene. Christmas is only fun for the Precious Babies. For them, Winter is Christmas trees and hot chocolate and crackling fireplaces. That's why Rockefeller plaza is full of Precious Babies. There are no soulless business men, no grieving widows, no orphaned group home kids.
My family didn't celebrate Christmas. We weren't the type of people who took the subway to look at skyscraping evergreens. I'm almost glad we didn't get caught up in all that holly-jolly bullshit. Christmas has become a chore in society. They say the moral of the holiday is that giving is more important than receiving. In my family we received nothing. In Hope House we received scented hand sanitizers and stale candy-canes. This year I have decided to give. Up. I have given up pretending that I can stand this fake-family crap much longer, pretending that someday I won't have to have monthly meetings with Jeremy, pretending that I am pretty or smart or kind. I can't believe I have to keep playacting until I'm eighteen.
The wind comes in blasts. I blink the freeze from my eyes.
"What are we supposed to be waiting for?" Vanessa asks.
Lin unhooks his arm from around Vanessa's waist to grab his phone from his pocket. "I was sure that-- hold on." He squints at something on the screen. The windchill reaches its maximum. I should have brought gloves. My scarf suffocates my throat. Can't swallow, can't talk, can't breathe.
Sebastian leans into my leg and slides his toy train up my thigh. "Look at the tree."
"Beautiful, right?" I suggest. He shrugs. Toddlers aren't aware of the luxury they live.
YOU ARE READING
SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda
Fanfiction"Sometimes I think the universe sets certain people out into the world like gifts meant for others, people whose purpose is to save someone else. That's how I think of families. And if the universe couldn't do me that favor, couldn't put someone on...
