Another Christmas Eve

It had been exactly sixteen minutes since she arrived. She counted the minutes the same way she counted the steps from the overly-crooked pear tree to the crisp wooden bench that mocked it. Deirdre’s letter said seven o’clock, Central Park Pond, in their usual spot. Still, sixteen minutes later, Cecilia was the only sign of life in sight. The trees whose fruit she admired mere months ago were now on the cusp of dying, with the ends of their lives being as unpredictable as they were every winter. Seventeen minutes.

Cecilia didn’t let herself think about the last time her sister was late. Instead, she sat peacefully in gloom and ruminated about how she would rather be spending Christmas Eve with her family. Her husband had worked so hard all year that he only got three days off for the holidays; her dad, on the other hand, had all the time in the world to ponder his existence. He needed her company now more than ever; after all, she was the only family he had left.

The snow began to fall gently on her cheeks and suddenly she was relieved she wasn’t at home that night. The pure, unstained white covering the ground reminded her that her husband liked drinking too much, especially on his days off. Cecilia couldn’t look at a bottle of champagne without getting triggered; she even refused to walk past the baking aisle in the grocery store, in case her mind started to wander in front of the vanilla extract.

Everyone told her to go to therapy after it happened— everyone except for her father. She idolized him. He never wanted his child to be put in any position to be judged. In his mind, and Cecilia’s alike, a therapist was the ultimate declaration of having no dignity left. So Cecilia got used to dealing with her problems on her own, without being pressured into taking medication or forced into an insane asylum. Her little sister wasn’t so clever; Deirdre resented her father for refusing her treatment. Cecilia admired him for protecting his little girls. She was certain that, if she was in his position, she would’ve done the exact same thing.

But for some reason, Cecilia’s mind couldn’t escape the aching feeling that something had gone terribly wrong with her sister. She hadn’t been late in six years, since the funeral. When Cecilia went looking for Deirdre that day and found her with a razor blade in her hands, wearing the sweatshirt their mom gave her. Heather gray, with an unrelenting brown stain on the left sleeve, from when Deirdre wore it last. Cecilia looked down at the gray under her coat, examined the stain on the sweatshirt, and let her mind wander.

Cecilia’s breathing became shallow and she wondered if it was because of the cold or because of the train passing by her. You’re in the middle of Central Park. Stop it. It was the third time that night she had to remind herself that there was no train, only the wind and the street traffic, accompanied by the faint sound of her trying so hard to suppress her negative thoughts. The train was nowhere to be seen, but she could still feel it growing louder with every heartbeat.

She pulled Deirdre’s letter out of her coat pocket, carefully examining it once again to see if she missed something. It was dated December 17, exactly a week ago, but Cecilia figured it just took longer than usual for the post office to deliver it during this season. She found it on her doorstep this morning, luckily before her father could. He hadn’t spoken to Deirdre in years.

But Cecilia was close with her sister, and she always had been, in a way that no one else ever was. She was close with her mom, too, and her little brother, before they were killed on Christmas Eve.

Before they died; it was an accident.

Regardless, nothing could stop the fleeting images of their bloody, mangled bodies lying helplessly beside hundreds of others who lost their lives that day. Unlike Deirdre, Cecilia was scared of dying, and the inescapable thoughts of mass destruction didn’t help in the slightest. If there was anyone who could’ve stopped that engineer from drinking, Cecilia wasn’t one of them. She had moved past it by now.

Deirdre hadn’t moved on, though, which she made profoundly clear in her letter. I still think about Mom and Isaac every day… I see them every night in my dreams. I know you must feel the same. Only she didn’t feel the same. Christmastime was the only time Cecilia thought of them almost every day, since every memory of the accident was riddled with brutal festivity. Otherwise, she let ignorance be her antidepressant.

By the time it was twenty-eight minutes past seven, Cecilia figured it was time to head back. She couldn’t feel her face or her feet, and the snow froze her eyelashes to the point that she could barely see through them to take one last look at the letter. I’ll see you then, if I can make it out. I love you.

Deirdre had planned their meeting so she had at least an hour of spare time, leaving no possibility of missing her meeting with her sister. She was never late.

Yet, somehow, Cecilia managed to convince herself that her sister got held up at work, on Christmas Eve, because maybe her boss was that cruel and she was that bad at planning. No point in placing blame. Cecilia was a rational person, and that was a rational explanation. She got up off the park bench, placed the letter in her pocket, and counted the steps back to the main road to distract herself from the loneliness of that night. Deirdre didn’t show up like she promised, there were no animals in sight, and nearly every person in New York City was indoors, having dinner with their families or drinking with strangers at bars.

So Cecilia took one last look at everything around her before she left, like she had a habit of doing since the accident, to ensure nothing was wrong. The bench was exactly where it had been when she arrived half an hour ago, now with a light dusting of snow everywhere except where she had just been sitting. The trees were still naked, not a soul hiding behind them, not a single bird chirping in the evergreens that outlasted all the others, especially the fruitless pear tree. The pond was still frozen, although it hadn’t been just a few days before. Everything was black, and white, with splashes of green, and just a drop of red.

Cecilia’s eyes didn’t deceive her the way her ears did, though. There was indeed a drop of red, actually a few drops of red, frozen into the snow right next to the pond she once knew so well. And as she glanced just beneath the surface of the ice, Cecilia finally saw the face she had been expecting for thirty-five minutes.

If I can make it out. Cecilia didn’t understand what she had meant then; she rarely did. Her sister was weirdly poetic in that way, and similarly unpredictable. Cecilia, on the other hand, was a rational person. Loss was a natural part of life, something everyone would be forced to deal with at some point. It was cold enough that her tears would freeze, so she told herself that was the reason she didn’t cry.

So she walked away, with the last letter her sister ever wrote in her coat pocket, wearing the last present her mother ever gave with a blood stain on the sleeve that refused to come out. Christmas had always been a difficult time for Cecilia, and today was no different. She walked home slowly, lucky enough to have the sound of the train drowning out her thoughts. Maybe she’d have that drink after all.