Closed Bridges

Grace sped past the last flickering tree and raced for the tolls. Hardened snowflakes drummed against the glass—the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up. In the haze of snow she could not read the license plate on the car before her. Michael Bublé’s silky caroler’s voice interrupted a poor, pessimistic news anchor on the radio. After three beats, Grace slammed the off-button with a double-gloved hand. 

Her phone buzzed in the silence. An old picture of her mother stared at her from the screen, a picture from a time when mom still dyed her hair. Grace let the signals ring and stared at the red rear lights on the car in front as it halted. A tailback. It was Christmas Day, she couldn’t be mean—but in her mind she pounded the horn.

Before Grace could calm herself, her mother called again. Be a good daughter for once, pleaded the phone. She glanced at her 30 year-old red-headed mother again; even back then she looked aged. Sighing, she answered the phone.

“Grace! I just wanted to check in, how’s the trip going? Blizzard’s crazy, maybe you want to celebrate Christmas at home this year?”

“I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“Aren’t you a Christian, Grace?”

“I don’t celebrate Chrismas. John asked me if I wanted to be at dad’s with my other siblingsfor the holidays. He should’a known I wouldn’t respond.”

“Grace,” She could hear mom’s tears.

“Traffic’s moving. Gotta go. See you ‘round mom.” She jerked the car forward a foot. Soon, she would be in Jersey with radical atheists. No gift recived from Coke’s fat mascot could trump eating pizza in a disshevelled 2-bedroom apartment and listening to 80’s rock.

She could glimpse the tolls through the haze of whirring snowflakes. Almost there, in the grease, booze and dust she called christmas. The memory was fuzzy and warm, even in her old, heater-less Toyota.

A car awkwardly slipped past her on the road. She met the driver’s angry gaze. Another car’s headlights blinded her. The tires in front of her screeched and the car turned around. Too late, she thought and sank into the carseat. The phone flashed with the news: Snowstorm of the decade, bridges out of Manhattan closing. 

When she rolled down a window, a cascade of hard snow stung her cheeks. She couldn’t feel the tip of her nose, buried her face in her scarf and pulled the hat down to her eyes. 

“Please, I need to get to Jersey.” The worker in the toll booth shook his head, pleading for her not to scold him. Crystalized droplets of breath stuck to his beard. Shaking his frozen head, he begged for her not to scold him.

“I’m sorry ma’am.”

She hadn’t spent Christmas in New York since she was 18 and still lived in her parents’ house—the house with two dining rooms, one for mom and one for dad. Every night they argued until their throats broke and shut themselves into seperate bedrooms. Every Christmas they tried to outdo the other on gifts for the kids, leaving January as a month for starvation. All six kids left when they quit school.

Could she spend Christmas at home? She turned around through the swirling snow and followed the same cars back to Manhattan—eyes straight ahead to avoid the gaze of a Santa Claus or a snowman. Her phone chimed with a text from John, her youngest brother. Merry Christmas Grace, he wrote and sent a picture of her entire family—minus mom— under a scrawny christmas tree. They smiled with self-pity. At Christmas, they resented her more than usual because she wouldn’t join their fake celebration. Dad still lived in the broken house. If her siblings would decide to celebrate alone, she could agree. No gifts, of course, but Christmas with her siblings might be pleasant. But not with dad. And not in that house.

She stopped her car outside her building—pink-ish walls, dirty windows and several old ladies smoking under blankets and winter coats. Limp, old curtains covered her own windows. Was this where she would spend Christmas? In her fridge, she had an empty tub of butter and leftover KFC. She didn’t need to buy gifts for half a dozen gredy children to starve during winter. The only gift she had bought was last minute, a ring for her boyfriend in the hopes he would see she cared about him. As if one could buy back love.

Her boyfriend spent Christmas with his family in Ohio. He had tried every plea, argument, and manipulation to make her meet his parents. Any time but the holidays, she said. Now she wanted to call him and ask if he had a good day, hear his soft, high voice and listen to how much he valued her. He was probably munching on turkey right now. She zipped up her jacket.

The apartment was not a venue for her Christmas. Never once had she spent Christmas day alone. She sat in the car with glazy eyes. Every minute, a happy child passed her with a smiling parent in each hand. They carried boxes with shiny toys or gobbled down candied apples. One certain child caught her eye—a little girl carried in her mother's brittle arm. In one hand, the child clutched a matted, stuffed bunny with a missing ear. Her mother’s hair was dyed bright red. 

***

Grace scanned the shelves of the supermarket for anything that could spark joy as a gift; a pink teddy bear, a six-pack of beer, an ugly Christmas sweater. Nothing was good. Last minute Christmas-presents were never good. Under her arm, she held a small box of broken gingerbread men—good enough. She gave up her quest and headed for the cash register.

“Anything else?” Said the teen behind the till. The gingerbread looked lonely as it inched forward on the rolling band. 

“A pack of Marlboro, please.” She looked around nervously as the cashier reached for the cigarettes. On every side of the cash register seemingly ramdom items were stacked. Condoms, energy drinks, sweets close to expiring. She spotted a tiny, beautiful box.

“And these Pralines.”

***

She didn’t know why she still had the key to her mothers apartment on her sparse keychain. Cigarette between her fingers, she approached the building and let herself in. The snow on her jeans started to melt and the fabric clung to her calf. Every floor smelled like smoke and dirt as she climbed the stairs, panting. She stopped outside her mother’s brown door and thummed on the praline box. Music jangled inside.

Grace knocked and the music silenced. She rythmically clacked her nails against the cardboard box. Mom groaned behind the door. The stench of jasmine and citrus perfume hit Grace like a gust of wind when the door opened. A circle of gray hairs framed mom’s face. Under a blanket thin as a veil, mom wore self-knitted socks and an ugly sweater Grace bought her as a child.

“Grace…” Her voice broke.

“Hi mom.” She hadn’t seen her mother since her birthday last year. Every time they scheduled something had come up—or Grace wanted to lie in her bed and watch old movies. Or her mother had back problems.

“What are you doing here?” Her mother wiped her eyes.

“Bridges closed. And I didn’t want to spend Christmas alone.”

“It’s so late, have you eaten anything?” Grace didn’t have time to say no. “You must be hungry. I have bread and some porridge on the stove. Do you want tea?” Her mother wiped her face again and rushed into the kitchen. 

“It’s okay mom, I don’t need anything.” Out in the kitchen, mom was already filling kettles with water. Soon, an old Christmas CD sounded between cardboard walls.

“I have your favorite tea. The black one with strawberries.” Grace sighed and thanked her mother. She took off her coat and placed both pairs of gloves inside the hood. Old newspaper issues stacked on the dresser in the hallway. The carpet was streaked with mud. The perfume couldn’t mask the scent of cigarette smoke. Grace, who also smelled like an ashtray, sighed.

In the kitchen, she spotted the photograph of her and all her siblings, taken when Grace was seven. It was the only thing that hung on any wall. The kettle hissed.

“I got you some gingerbread.”

“You’re so sweet.” Mom rushed from fridge to cupboard to table and put up a makeshift christmas dinner—bread, butter, ham and porridge. Grace opened the gingerbread container and put it on the table. Her mother groaned with every opened drawer. She dropped a mug Grace’s sister had handpainted and the shards scattered.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Mother sobbed.

“Mom.” Grace grabbed her mother’s dry hand. “I can clean it up. Sit down.”

“I’m not that old, I can clean up in my own home.”

“Let me do it. It’s Christmas, isn’t it?”  Grace picked the shards up from the floor and threw them in the trash. Mom’s chair creaked when she fell into it.  

“Thanks for making me food.”

“No, no. It’s just leftovers.” The porridge was heated unevenly, the bread was dry and the butter tasted of old fridge. The tea was good though—it tasted like the unspoiled part of her childhood. 

“It’s great mom.” Mom waved away the compliment and scraped off pink nailpolish. The silence was thick in the apartment, only broken by loud sips of tea.

“Actually mom,” Grace tried to lighten the mood. “I got something for you. It’s nothing big, but I felt you deserved to get at least something small for Christmas.” Grace got the pralines from the hallway. With unsteady hands, mom took the box and opened it carefully. The pralines were small, shaped perfectly, and decorated with sprinkle-like ornaments in different colors.

“It’s wonderful.” Mom could no longer wipe away the tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get you anything, you always say you don’t want no gifts.” Grace tried to say it was okay but mom continued. “I got your siblings a gift each. Nothing expensive, but something for them to remember me, to maybe spark joy.”

“That’s nice, mom.”

“But I didn’t get to give it to them yet. They said they’re coming by my house tomorrow. I haven’t even wrapped the gifts yet. And who knows if they decide to stay home instead.”

“I’m sure they want to spend Christmas with you, mom.”

“Oh, they don’t want to be with me. Chris’s got the big house. What do I have? I got a smoke-filled apartment and no money.”

“They do, I…”

“They don’t. You wouldn’t be here if the bridges didn’t close. They wouldn’t be here if I didn’t pester them. Face it. I’m lonely. Chris even got to keep my cats.” Mom stood up, wrapped the washed-apart blanket tighter around her and stappled into the living room.

“Do you want help cleaning up?”

“Just leave it. Just… I want to watch Love Actually and get it over with.” Film music swept over the apartment as mom sank down on the gray couch. Grace listened and munched on her dry bread some more before she dumped the porridge in the trash, returned the butter to the fridge, and joined her mother in the couch with tea and pralines.

“You don’t have to sit here with me.”

“Mom.”

“I know you hate Love Actually,”

“I like watching it.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying mom. I promise. I love watching this movie, so I can comment on every flaw. The movie is terrible, but who doesn’t like tearing something awful to shreds?” Mom chuckled. “Like the guy who learns Portuguese for a woman he talked to once.”

“Sweet.”

“Creepy.”  Mom couldn’t help but smile at Grace. They watched the rest of the movie together, both under mom’s thin blanket. After, even though it was late, Grace helped mom to wrap the gifts for her siblings and promised to join their Boxing Day celebrations. Another pot of tea disapeared down their gullets, and Grace couldn’t leave her tired mother without a hug. Her mother’s arms were thin and cold, but the hug still warmed.

The next year, Grace spent all Christmas with her mom.