Cecelia Ahern: Short Stories: The Every Year Collection

CECELIA AHERN

Every Year

Every year I watch them. Every year I see the changes, how the days and seasons apart have somehow softened their tongues. Each year the evidence is faint but palpable all the same. If you look closely at the edges, at the curve of the smiles once tight, the relaxed shoulders once hunched and the flow of words once clipped, you can see that their edges have blurred like the early-morning sun’s effect on the annual ice sculpture on the lawn. Look more closely and somewhere in its hard, frosty exterior you can see, can hear, the drip, drip, drip of its hard shell slipping away. A transparent cold drop warmed just enough to allow release; the warmth letting it know it’s not a flaw to thaw. Time has been this family’s sun. Year after year, I have seen the coldness slipping away from them until I see them now, together and cocooned by the warmth of Christmas Day.

Every year I’m taken from the dark dusty confines of an attic by the same pair of hands, but every year those hands have felt different. Over the years they carried not only me, but the weight of more responsibility. I feel it in his grip now, feel it by the heaviness of his steps down the stairs. I’ve gone from being carelessly mauled and dropped by his once dirty, childish hands to being cradled in the ones I see wrapped around me now. They are those of a man, creator of his own bearers of dirty, careless hands, and now they of theirs. I was given to him by his father, a special July deal in the front window of a rundown hardware store in the 1920s, where the paint blistered and peeled from its exterior until it was pared right down to nothing.

Like my carrier I am old, and he shares me with his own family now. We are slow going down the stairs this year, his breathing loud and his hands frail. I don’t feel secure in his leather-like skin as in previous years, and I’m fearful of his accidentally releasing me from his clutches as he used to in the giddiness of his childhood. I note the full circle that life has taken for him; he is getting older, yet younger, as though time were moving in two directions. Every year his body declines but his spirit doesn’t. He lives for this time of year, for his family to gather around him, knowing he and his wife are the flame to their moths’ gathering.

I’m placed on the table before the crackling fire. I see the stockings line the mantelpiece, every year an added sock for a new little one. I see the multicoloured presents piled high under the tree, shimmering paper wrapped in big delightful bows all heckling to be untied and ripped open. He and she had spent all week wrapping these, I know from hearing their muffled voices below my place in the attic, and I know that the month-long lead-up to Christmas has been spent shopping for them together. Careful, thoughtful, shared decisions made while strolling under the decorative lights, bundled up in hats, scarves and gloves as the world raced around them. They took it all in, cheered as the lights were turned on, hoisted awestruck grandchildren onto Santa’s lap and noticed as more trees appeared in windows in the great big build-up to today.

They are the irreplaceable weeks where everyone feels the hands of time tick by louder as the day approaches, beating faster in the big rush until hearts are left banging in chests in anticipation and expectation. I wait with the old man for the crowd to arrive. I look around the room with him, see the pride in his eyes, sense the excitement rush through his veins of another year, another day all being together. My God, they don’t happen often enough, I know he thinks.

The doorbell rings and time’s ticking hands are drowned out by the tinkling Christmas tunes; the flames of candles by the window dance excitedly on their wicks as the cars pull up outside; the lights on the tree sparkle and wink at him, encouraging him to make his way to the door. Build-up over, it’s time. His troops begin to arrive. One by one.

Big hugs for Mum and Dad, woolly jumpers embrace polo-necks to oohs and aahs of delight as the cinnamon, pine, Brussels sprouts and cooking turkey tickle their senses. Children race around in excitement, their little hearts overfilled with the joy of the morning’s magic. They poke at the presents, eye the name tags, stare at the chimney while shaking their heads, wondering and conferring among one other how on earth he did it. And then the annual stories are told: of hearing him on the roof, seeing the reindeers fly off and even meeting the great man himself. Wide eyes and wows for the little ones who have slept through the night, rolled eyes for the elders who hide their smiles while secretly wishing for that feeling within them to return. What a great man, the little ones all agree, while munching on mince pies. What a great man.

And then the conversation, stilted at first, of those who once shared bedrooms and secrets, once fought over toys and friends and huddled under bed sheets with torches, begins. Here they are on the one day of the year on which the parental flame shines brightly enough to attract them all at once. The room is now a hotpot of past, present and future family. All eyes are on the kids, the ones who bathe in the excitement of the day and who, in turn, reflect the magic back to their parents.

He announces he’s going to put me on top of the tree and the little ones rush to gather around. The old man takes me into his frail hands. The routine applause sounds the same to them every year, but not to me. Like the ice sculpture, you must pay close attention. The tones have varied as the time has gone by. In the early years it was excitement, the joy of little ones’ first experiences. Then, as the years passed and time floated away as gently and subtly as a feather in the wind, cheers turned to jeers and excitement to boredom as hormones flailed around in changing bodies, kicking and screaming. This year they are adults: mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts who have learned to understand all that was misunderstood in teenage years. They applaud loudly and joyously, with their own excited little ones hopping around by their sides, craning their necks to look at me with great awe.

My, they’ve grown. I’ve seen their changing faces over the years, how as teens they began to learn to hide their frustrations well, just as the December weather masks the ground outside. The snowflakes drift, altering the landscape and covering the rough and the ugly in a smooth, brilliant white.

I have sensed already that I won’t be carried to my place next year by the same pair of hands. I sensed it by his shaking and by how his eyes filled up when the others weren’t looking. Instead of going directly towards the tree, he turns and I find I’m being handed to Tom, whose twelve-year-old mouth gapes open as I’m passed from old hands to new. The eldest grandson looks back to his mother and father, who nod encouragingly and smile with pride.

Tom brings me slowly towards the tree. It looks bigger now than it used to as I lie in the protective hands of a smaller boy. As we get closer, it looms and the tinsel glitters and the branches smell of glorious pine. I see our reflection in a red bauble. I see the excitement and anxiety in Tom’s face as he takes each careful step, not wanting to ruin the moment. With his back turned to the hushed family he takes a step up the ladder. I’m ceremoniously perched in my presiding place.

They think it’s going to be the same all the time, but I know it’s not. They used to think, in their raging hormonal days, that they would rather be anywhere but here at this dinner table, on this day, but now they know differently. I see them, looking to their parents, as their little ones look to them.