Tracy O'Neill - The Hopeful

“But it’s your ring,” I said.

“Ho ho ho!” belly-howled Uncle Ron.

“Shut up,” said Uncle Snowden.

“You’ll grow into it,” my father told me. “You’re already a bigger man than I ever was.”

When Aunt Joyce began singing, everyone pretended they needed to go to the bathroom for a respite from shrill squeals of “Joy to the World.” When she’d learned that alcohol had calories, Joyce saved her diet points for Christmas, and after three days of iceberg lettuce, she was drunk on punch. “Open up for the airplane,” my mother said, dangling potato from a fork. But even food couldn’t keep her quiet.

The telephone rang while everyone else was trying to finish dinner. I got up, guessing it was Dorothy. Surely her apartment was quieter, filled only with the sounds of methodical chopping and brisk metallic clips of the whisk.

“Hello?” I said.

“Is it absolutely sacrilegious of me to say I hate The Nutcracker ?”

“Tchaikovsky shmaikovsky,” I said. “Merry Christmas, Aunt Miranda.”

“What are your plans for this joyeux Noelle , darling? Please don’t say eggnog. The name alone sounds like vomit.”

“Nonperishable beverages only,” I promised.

“Disaster averted!” she said. “I called because I have a ballet for you.”

“Does it end in a wedding?”

“It begins with a heroine,” she said.

The ballet was Paquita , the story of a young girl in Spain during the Napoleonic occupation. One day she falls in love with a handsome officer named Lucien, a marriage to whom is precluded by her birth as a gypsy. When the governor hires an assassin to kill Lucien, Paquita saves his life but still cannot share it with him because of her low stature. And yet it is not a class tragedy, because it turns out she is not a gypsy by blood, but was abducted as an infant, and is, in fact, of noble birth.

“And so Paquita escapes to happily ever after, which of course does mean a wedding.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“I have to say I too am disappointed.”

“In the ending?”

“In you , my pet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know . I know that you aren’t skating anymore. That you haven’t been to the skating rink in months. I took a trip to Boston, and you can only imagine my disappointment when the very helpful receptionist told me that, yes, she did remember an Alivopro Doyle now that she thought about it, but that, no, she hadn’t seen you in quite some time.”

I was caught, but I didn’t want to think so. “Clearly she hasn’t been paying attention.”

“Oh God, please don’t bore me with any more off this nonsense.”

“I’m not boring. I’m trying to explain,” I said. “It wasn’t going to be a lie.”

“You’re lying now about lying!”

“That’s not fair.”

“Fair? I will tell you a little something about fair, darling. Mick Jagger had it right: you can’t always get what you want. And just because you can’t doesn’t mean you get to disappoint the people who care for you. I am a liar and a cheater, and I don’t mind being lied to or cheated on. I care about being disappointed ! It’s fine if it’s all a fairy tale, but make it one that holds up better. Now, why don’t you go roast some chestnuts before your mother has a Christmas conniption? Until regionals, my pet, if you know what I mean.” And then she hung up.

Back in the kitchen, my mother emphasized “was.” The dinner dishes were in the sink. The bread basket had been cleared. She held up Aunt Joyce’s jacket: “It wa s so wonderful to see you.” Aunt Joyce didn’t understand subtlety. Half her meal had ended up in her cleavage. Besides, it was doubtful she could hear anything over her own splintering song.

I was shaken enough by my conversation with Aunt Miranda that I felt like I could lose it any minute, just scream and scream until all the air ran out.

“Can’t you do something about this?” Uncle Snowden asked Uncle Ron. “You’re her husband.”

“Usually I just wait until she passes out.”

“Can’t you bring her home to do that?” my mother asked.

“I second that motion,” I said. My mother looked at me like a stranger in the street returning a dropped wallet.

“She might ralph in the car,” Uncle Ron said. “That’s leather upholstery.”

That was it. I couldn’t wait any longer. I went upstairs to use the phone. I was going to call Dorothy. One ring in though, a call came beeping in from the other side.

“Me so horny. Me so sexy. Come to mommy.”

“You are a living, breathing twenty-four-seven, three-sixty-five one-eight-hundred number Lucy.”

“Seriously, VoVo. Come to mommy,” she said. “That impatient little fucker made a getaway.”

“Which fucker?” If Jack had left her again, I would find him and strangle him myself.

“Look VoVo, you know I’ve never kept my hole on lockdown-I’m in labor. You’d better come now ‘cause I’m sure as hell not going to be happy if you all aren’t there to see my scream my asshole off.”

Ten minutes later, Aunt Joyce was still rolling on the floor singing about snowmen, but we were on our way to the hospital.

At the hospital Lucy repeated her sentiment that Little Jack was an impatient little fucker. I tried to reiterate her humor. He would be one of those people who always showed up to a party unfashionably early. He would get to the airport so far in advance for domestic flights he could fly international if he wanted. I could joke, but Lucy thought nothing funny in the cuteness of the abbreviation used by the nurses: premee. “Like baby talk!” she said. “Like a poodle name!”

My mother had held Lucy’s hand during labor. Graham Crackers never showed up. Later we’d discover she’d forgotten where she was going halfway to the hospital. I asked Lucy how she was feeling.

“I’m ready for a whiskey, and Big Jack owes me eight months of drinks.”

“Only you would want a drink before you’re even out of the medical gown,” my mother said.

“ Because I’m not out of the medical gown yet, I want a drink,” Lucy said.

Before we left for the hospital, I’d taken a few pills because I was starting to tire. Now I felt brittle, my heart was stampeding, and the hospital lights were ringing a headache through my skull. A pressure was building. I wanted to close my eyes. Lucy. Lucy. I was there for Lucy, I had to remember. “What do you call that outfit?” I asked her.

“Oh this old thing? Mommy Dearest Unfolds Origami, or alternatively, I Went Through Labor And All I Got Was This Lousy Paper Dress.”

“And a child,” my mother said.

“And a big, loose, aching hoo-ha,” Lucy said.

“You know how many women would undergo the guillotine to be in your position?”

“Let them eat cake,” I said. This was a warning.

When the fathers returned with sandwiches, my mother extended prayers to Big Jack, while Lucy sang “He’ll wear an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini,” which is how I knew she was worried. Little Jack was on a ventilator.

“I don’t pray,” Big Jack told my mother. “I empty the mind.”

“If you don’t believe, it doesn’t hurt to pray. Better safe than sorry,” my mother responded.

“Jack Senior’s religious beliefs are compost,” Lucy said. “You know, put sweet potato peels in the ground. Up pop more. Mean sweet potatoes turn out turnips. That sort of thing.”

“An eye for an eye. Balanced equations. Get out what you put in. American Dream kind of stuff, etcetera, etcetera,” I elaborated.