Sarah's Family Sitcom: Holiday Special

I love my family for exactly twenty-three minutes, excluding commercial breaks. Across my face, fragmented footage of each cast member, all of us clumsy and smiling. A catchy jingle tunes out my screaming, and no one can see the terror popping from my eyes as I realize I cannot escape

THE CHRISTMAS EPISODE.

It is a cold, snowy winter morning, and I am wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I am rigid yet my body shivers. I hug myself with little relief, yet it is my best effort against the freezing winds stabbing my skin.

Dad shuffles on-screen through inches of snow, layered in his parka and his aviator hat and his concerning eyes.

“Oh, Sarah,” he says, “why on earth are you doing outside without a coat?”

“The plot,” I forced myself to say. They laugh. I don’t know who “they” are. The voices in my head. A live studio audience from another plane of existence. I don’t know, but whenever I’m around a relative I can hear them laughing or aww-ing so loud I can’t think straight. I don’t know if others hears it. Usually no one talks when they make a sound.

Dad leads me to a cabin several yards away. I remember his cabin, next to the woods. His home away from home. When I was a kid he took me here. He taught me how to hunt innocent animals, to catch unsuspecting fish. We dragged deer carcasses into these wooden walls, prepared them for great feasts. Just the two of us, father and daughter. The weather was more agreeable during those times. But it’s freezing now, and he is alone.

I stand next to the lit fireplace wrapped in a blanket. Dad prepares a stew in a pot over the gas range. Without his parka, a red sweater patterned with green elves stretches under his whale of a belly. The hair on his head looks thinner than I remember but his trademark mustache is the same. He stares at the steaming pot, stirring mindlessly, as if in a trance.

“I don’t know how I got here,” I say. “The last thing I remember was going to bed in my apartment in Florida. I can’t really afford to travel right now. But I would have called, to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m in between jobs right now, and it’s been hard.”

He looks from the pot to me for the first time. “I’m sorry, baby girl, I didn’t hear a word you said.” The mysterious voices laugh. “Things have not been so festive between your mother and me. It’s been bothering me for weeks now.”

“You’ve been staying here for weeks?”

“Hey, it’s not all bad. I made fox stew. You’re gonna love it.” He lifts the wooden spoon from the pot to taste test it. “Mmmmm, gamey.” *Laughter*

“Dad, what happened between you and Mom?”

He sighs. “I…sort of…let it slip that I missed Sharon. Your birth mother.”

“Dad…” I don’t know what to say. I never knew my birth mother. She died in a car accident before I could even remember. But Dad told me I got my violent tendencies from her. I don’t like it when Mom’s upset, but can I really tell him to get over an old love taken from him too soon?

“Please talk to your mom for me,” he pleads to me on his knees with prayer hands above his face. “I tried talking to her about it but she ignored me. I thought giving her some space would help but I’m so lonely and it’s cold and I don’t want to cook every night even for myself. Help me!” 

He looks adorably pathetic. I agree to help.

A musical sting based on the opening jingle plays. Across my face, footage of my childhood home in Colorado under an ivory December sky.

I stand on the porch as Dad opens the front door in front of me. “Aaaargh, stop that!” I scream at the invisible producers in charge of the transitions, the unknown audience turning my life into a sitcom, or no one at all as far as the rest of the world is concern. *Laughter* We enter the house, and my little brother, Jamie, and his best friend, Barker, are playing tug-of-war with a yellow portal floating in the middle of the living room—or rather, some creature on the other side of the portal. Jamie, scrawny and naïve as he is, is a genius at sci-fi bullshit, yet it makes everything more interesting and unnecessarily complicated.

Jamie and Barker yank at a string of Christmas lights, which makes me take a moment to absorb the décor. Four stockings above the fireplace we never used. Silver garlands outline the windows. Wreaths with red bows clutter the walls. More lights wrapped around the stair railing like a boa constrictor. A Christmas tree in the corner violated by an assortment of silver and gold and white ornaments. 

Jamie and Barker stumble forward as the creature on the other side of the portal sucks up the string of lights like a ramen noodle. 

“Ha-ha, good one, Fluffy,” says Jamie. “Now, spit in out.” *Laughter*

“What in the worl—you opened the portal again?” Dad says.

“But I haven’t shown Butch, yet.” Jamie says.

“He promised me a portal full of the toughest beings in the known multiverse,” Butch says. He turns to the portal. “I’m not impressed.” *Laughter*

Jamie spots me. “SARAH!” He runs towards me before I could take a full three steps into the house. He hugs me. I hug him back more eagerly than I thought I could. He was in middle school before I moved out, back when he tinkered with robots that always seemed to turn out disastrous or homicidal. He’s slightly taller than me now. Has to be a sophomore or junior in high school. 

“Where’s Mom?” I ask.

“In Mel’s room, feeding her, I think. You should visit more often. The series has more of a whacky sci-fi vibe now. You’d have a lot of fun.”

I raise an eyebrow at “the series.” 

“Well, hello, sweetness.” Butch approaches me. Jamie’s annoying friend since they were in pre-school. They’re the same height. He always wears shirts with the sleeves ripped off. Always acts like a macho Don Juan. He approaches me with his shoulders pulled back and thumbs gripping his pockets. *Laughter* “Came back because there weren’t any real men in Florida? Trust me, shawty, I’m a 10/10 ten days of the week.” *Laughter*

I punch him in the solar plexus. When he folds over, I grab him by the hair and belt and walk him across the living room. I toss him in the portal. Audible, crunchy, chewing sounds from the other side. Then a burp as loud as a megaphone. A human skull covered in blood and thick saliva shoots back to our side and sliding along the floor. The audience laughs the whole time this happens. The longer I stay here, the more it comes back to me that murder pleases them more than anything. Their amusement makes my stomach turn.

“Eh,’ says Jamie. “He always comes back next episode.” *Laughter*

Dad tells Jamie to close the portal before he and I make our way upstairs.

We stand outside the closed door of Melanie’s bedroom. Dad looks down at his feet like a first grader sent to the principle’s office. He usually likes to make excuses when he messes up, but now he looks remorseful, harder on himself than anyone could be on him.

“Aren’t you coming in to plead your case?” I ask in a whisper.

“And try to come up with an explanation for why I’m missing my first wife who’ll been dead for twenty-three years and give my current wife of nineteen years a reason to poison my coffee? No, thanks,” he says all in a whisper. “Go get her, tiger.” 

He opens the door, shoves me inside, and shuts it behind me. “Hey!” I cried. *Laughter*

While the rest of the house is covered in layers of festive holiday vomit, Mel’s nursery is just as much of a regurgitation of pink as I remembered. Pink crib. Pink changing station. Pink nursery mobile. Mom’s opportunity to have the girly girl she always wanted, instead of one who hunts with Dad and gets into fights. Mom looks tranquil sitting in a pink accent chair, cradling baby Mel in her arms, elevating the pink baby bottle Mel sucks from.

When the door slammed behind me, Mom looks up, her face lights up. “Sarah,” she says in a warm tone, and I think of how it never sounded like this over the years of me calling her from Florida, and how thankful I am that she saved her warmth for this moment. She’s aging gracefully, her blonde hair with a bit of white at the bangs, her figure almost as slim as it always was. We give each other a side embrace on account of the baby.

“I’m so glad you’re came to surprise us for the holidays,” Mom says.

“Is she ever going to age?” I ask, referring to Mel. She’s been a baby for a decade.

“I know it’s concerning,” Mom says, “but I’m practically obsessed with her being this cute. How was the trip back home? Did you bring Brad with you?”

“I caught Brad cheating on me a couple of weeks ago, so I broke his arm.” *Laughter*

She sighs. “Men can’t help but think of other women, I suppose.”

“Dad told me how he messed up.”

“You mean how he still has the hots for his old wife while I’m right here, taking hot yoga classes and raising his children?” She sounds pissed now. I don’t know if I should feel offended by how she’s referring to my birth mother.

“I mean, I’m no psychologist, but I’m sure it’s more complicated than that.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“No.”

“You know, when I first met your father, he had just lost Sharon, and was raising you on his own, feeding you elk milk and deer steak.” *Laughter* “But he was so adorable, and caring. And he still is. But when we stared at the Christmas tree and right next to me he blurted out ‘Sharon would have loved this. I miss her’—after all the years I’ve given him—well, it made me feel like his rebound chick all along.” There is a depressing “aww” from the audience as deafening as their laughter. Mom stares at the ground for a moment, having no obvious reaction to the sympathetic sound when I am fairly certain disgust is plastered on my face because of their unwarranted concern. 

“Oh, honey bunny…” says Dad from outside the room. *Laughter*

He enters the nursery and approaches Mom for a hug. She stops him with a palm to the chest.

“Were you really just eavesdropping?” she asks.

“Well, it’s not like you’ve been exactly forthcoming with me,” he says.

“Well, I don’t think you could understand how I feel, seeing as how I’ve loved no one else but you.”

“Oh, that’s not fair.”

“Would it be fair if I just forget you said what you said?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

Mel, feeding off the tension in the room, begins to cry.

“Could you please hold her, Sarah,” Mom says. She throws Mel at me. *Laughter* It is a miracle I don’t drop her, or perhaps Mom has experience throwing her across the room, which is a disturbing thought.

“Oh, now you want to talk?” Dad says.

“Yeah,” Mom says. “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for the past two weeks.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you are a—”

There is a crash. Or an explosion. A volcanic eruption of wood and furniture. I fly back until I slam into the wall and fall to my backside. Eyes shut. I secure Mel as tight as I can. When my eyes open, there is a monster standing in front of me. A giant, lilac thing, with the body of a muscle-bound man, yet its torso is attached not to legs but to the body of a humungous spider. It’s back is to me, but I can see that it has both Mom and Dad in each mega-sized hand. It looks back at me, frightening yellow eyes and tusks in its mouth. Disinterested in me, it leaps with its spider legs through the roof and disappears. 

I sit there, staring at the hole in the floor where it came from, then the hole in the ceiling it leaped through. Mel is still crying.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say, talking to Mel, to myself. “It’s going to be okay.” I pat her on her back to calm her down. She burps and stops crying. *Laughter*

“FLUFFY!” cries Jamie, who barges into the nursery. *Laughter* “Quick, Sarah, we have to get Fluffy back.”

I struggle to get to my feel, what with carrying Mel and being shaken up by Fluffy’s appearance, but I manage. I hold Mel with my left arm because I’m righthanded, using that free hand to sock Jamie in the solar plexus just as I did his annoying friend. He doubles over. *Laughter*

“That thing kidnapped Mom and Dad, you idiot.” I tell him. “And you’re going to help me get them back.”

A musical sting plays, more somber to indicate all is not well. Across my face, footage of dead trees towering over a snow-covered earth.

I realize I’m screaming. Not from terror or pain, but from madness. When my mind comes back to me, I realize that I’m following a trail that’s part spider footprints, part broken branches. In my arms I hold a large chrome gun straight out of an alien movie. 

“Do you scream like that during every transition?” Jamie asks. He follows close behind me, pushing Mel along with a stroller. We are dressed in coats and boot and earmuffs to keep warm in the cold weather—I must be wearing winter closes my parents kept from my high school years. “You know, transitions are especially helpful for skipping over tedious things like driving or changing clothes. No BS, just straight to what we came to do.”

“Please stop that,” I say.

“Stop what?” he asks.

“Stop talking like we’re characters in a TV show. It’s so…condescending. You think you’re special for talking like that but you’re not.”

“What are you talking about? Of course, I’m special. Breaking the fourth wall is my shtick.”

“I thought whacky sci-fi was your shtick.”

“I’m very shticky.” *Laughter*

I tell him to shoosh when I stop it. We crouch behind a tree. Mom and Dad hang on a webbing between to huge trunks. I can see the visible, could air of them breathing out, which is good, but Dad is unconscious. His right arm is missing, the wound closed by more webbing. Mom is mouthing something I’m too far away to hear, perhaps trying to talk to him. 

“Aww, look,” Jamie says. Fluffy is hanging the string of Christmas lights it stole earlier around Mom and Dad. There is some gibberish that almost looks like Merry Christmas written above their heads. 

I turn on the giant sci-fi gun. It lights up and makes sounds. 

“Oh, come on, it’s just trying to be festive,” Jamie says. *Laughter*

Mom spots us. “KIDS!” she screams as a cry for help or a plea to run. I can’t tell which. Either way, she gives up our position. I groan. *Laughter* Fluffy turns, and growls. We immerge from hiding as it is useless to do so now.

“Fluffy,” Jamie says. “I know you need our parents to have a Merry Christmas. But we need them, too. Alive, preferably.” *Laughter*

The monster charges. It’s fast, faster than anything I’ve seen. In less than a second it’s over us, ready to kill us. Its massive fingers hover around us when Mel begins to cry. It freezes, paralyzed by Mel’s voice. 

“Baby,” it says in a tone as loving as it can produce. *Laughter* Privately, I have long since gotten over Mel’s cuteness and was convinced of her uselessness except to be a leech on the family—Mom, in particular. So it is at this moment that I’ve never been more grateful for her tiny existence. 

If I were Jamie, I would have appreciated to complexity of the creature. Its base instinct is self-preservation, yet it seemingly longs for tradition and family like everyone else. Regardless, I pull the trigger on Jamie’s chrome gun, and from it a ray of light shoots a clean hole through its chest. Mom cheers. Jamie realizes he pissed himself. *Laughter*

A musical sting plays, upbeat, optimistic. Across my face, footage of my childhood Colorado home again.

I don’t scream this time. The madness of family life sets in, becomes part of me again. We’re all wearing Christmas sweaters, sitting around the lit fireplace that’s never lit. Dad rests his head on Mom’s lap, with her brushing his forehead with a thumb. I cradle Mel in my arms. Jamie tinkers with something potentially deadly. 

“It was very brave of you to try to fight that thing,” Mom tells Dad. “Even though it ate your arm.”

“You know,” Dad began. “I still think about Sharon from time to time, how it’s not fair that she’s missing all of this.” He looks at me. “I pray she realizes what a wonderful woman she helped create.” He looks at Mom. “But you’re still the love of my life.” *AWWW* “Jamie, can you whip up a gizmo to grow me a new arm?”

“I can, offscreen,” Jamie says. *Laughter*

“Good, but you’re still grounded,” Mom says. *Laughter*

I’ll never admit to them how much I missed this, how much I will cherish this Christmas season for years to come.

Everything goes black. The outro jingle plays. I’m relieved. End credits.