Happy holidays, chérie! // She is five, with her head perched on a thin pillow, mouth open and eyes half closed as she reaches up with a small hand, fingers grasping at the edge of her mother’s jaw as she leans over her. Outside her window, the porch lights are still on, streaking through her blinds. “They’re for Santa,” her mother whispers, conspiratorially, “So he’ll know which house to come to. But he won’t come if you don’t sleep, little bear.” (1)
She is eight, and it’s hot in her room, her flannel pyjamas clinging close to her skin and damp with sweat, and she turns towards the closed door to her bedroom, then back to the wall again, so many times her sheets tangle around her. She gets up, and crosses the room, eyes fixed on the window on the other side of it. The porch lights are on. (2)
She is eleven, and she’s too old, too rational, too well-raised, to believe in Santa anymore, but the lights are on when she goes to sleep anyway. (3)
She is fourteen, and the house is consumed by darkness. Balmy air biting at her, she slips out the front door, and sits on the porch in the blackness. (4)
She is seventeen, and her father lets her stay at Riya’s on Christmas Eve, ruffling her hair and offering a distracted, single-armed hug before she goes, overnight bag slung over one shoulder. When she realizes that she forgot her retainer, and Riya drives her home at almost midnight, the house is shadowed and solemn, and they almost struggle to see it in the dark. (5)
She is twenty, and when she texts Logan directions to her apartment on the periphery of Langston’s campus, she says, ‘I’ll leave a light on for you.’ (6)
Oh Anon, thank you for this beautiful gift. I think I’ve read it a dozen times since it arrived in my inbox, my only excuse for sharing it a day late. You made my holiday so bright, thank you for thinking of me!