To Brighten the Room

“It’s not the Rockefeller, but it’ll do.” The man takes a few steps back, careful not to slip over all the tissue paper strewn across the floor. He carefully makes his way to his couch that holds only a single, clearly defined spot for sitting, before plopping himself down on the cushion as the worn springs rub against his tailbone. The mountain of laundry to his right starts to tip towards him, but he instinctively leans into it to stabilize it without drawing his gaze away from the tree, slowly pushing it until it leans the other way and unceremoniously falls onto the neglected carpet. He doesn’t pay it any mind. 

He reaches over towards an end table that’s miraculously free of laundry and grabs a lone mug that he slowly brings to his lips and takes a deep swig from it, but as it reaches the back of his throat, he spits it out onto the floor in exasperation. He looks in the mug, where he now registers the alcoholic smell wafting from the clear liquid. I left the coffee in the kitchen. He looks back towards the kitchen, where a single mug manages to stand out among a sea of dirty dishes due to the “Best Dad Ever!” words spelled in cheery blue letters on its face. He looks back at his current mug, sighs, and takes another swig.

The tree in front of him is leaning towards him from all the weight piled onto the front, its bare back the only clean area in the apartment. The ornaments hanging on the fake branches are hardly discernible due to how cluttered they are, but he remembers a few of them. A small nutcracker he painted a stark black back in middle school, a weighty baby Jesus on a hay bale he took out of a nativity scene and customized, and a slew of other pieces he’d made over the years from his families annual ornament party. There were no lights adorning it; he hadn't been able to find any, so the only light in the apartment came from the pure ambiance of the reruns of The Grinch on the television.

But on the top of the tree, hanging over a horribly lop-sided, glittering star, was the only ornament he’d ever bought. It was a noticeably nicer piece, carved of cherry wood and finished with a smooth coat of brown paint that showed two people, one with notably longer hair, holding hands with a date written out twice in two different handwritings in-between them. He knew what the date said, but he didn’t want to think about it. 

This was the first tree he’d ever owned. He was poor when he moved out for the first time and the father of his girlfriend at the time couldn’t stand the thought of a home without a tree around the holidays, so he’d went out and bought him a fake one from a local Ma and Pa shop as soon as he found it. He wondered how the man was doing now. 

Most of the plastic bristles had fallen off over time, so much so that they hadn’t bothered vacuuming the carpet anymore after putting it away the last two years, and he probably wasn’t going to again this year. It was starting to look like an evergreen after a forest fire, but he couldn’t will himself to go throw it away in the already overflowing community dumpster. It would feel to…final, he thought.

He looked at the messy floor and took note of all the tissue paper that the ornaments had been wrapped in to preserve them. If he just left them out until he put the tree away, that would erase an extra step from the process, save him some time on whichever day that was. Although, such a scenario relies solely on him putting the tree away. A concern for later. 

His phone started to ring in a dull tone, and unsurprisingly, he didn’t know where it was. He perked his head up slightly, trying what he convinced himself was his absolute hardest to locate the direction of the ringing. Behind me. Not the kitchen, likely the bedroom. Why would it be in there? He looked at the almost empty mug of vodka in his hand as the ringing kept going, and a level of realization hit him. Probably has something to do with this little cup. 

“Okay.” He looked at the ceiling, counted to three, and hoisted himself up with only his body weight propelling him forward as he set the mug back on the end table. He stretched his arms behind him as he walked towards the ringing, slipping on some of the debris across the floor as he walked to his bedroom. 

Unlike the rest of the apartment, his room was somewhat tidy, but that was a result of not having much to put in it. The only notable mess was another, smaller pile of laundry in the middle of his bed. He sighed, and walked over to unbury the phone that he realized had stopped ringing, and lifted the pile up in one motion, only to reveal nothing but an empty spot on top of his sheets. Damn.

His phone dinged again, and this time he was able to figure out where it was by the faint light on the edge of his desk, shining through a piece of paper that was lying on top of it. 

He walked over to his phone, but stopped to stare at the lone paper that had been ripped out of a packet, the only sign of this being a missing corner on the top left. There was a jumble of words on it, but the only things he saw were two names with lines next to them, one of which had already been signed by one Katherine Hall. Johnathan Hall’s line remained empty. Who knew when it would be signed.

Johnathan brushed the paper away and picked up his phone where four notifications were present; a new missed call and voicemail from his friend Thomas, and a matching set from “KH” listed being from last night. He listened to Thomas’ first after unlocking the phone with a wallpaper that read “You Got This!” in cartoony leathers underneath a picture of Optimus Prime. 

“Hey man its Tommy boy, just calling to see how you’re doing. Haven’t talked to you in a couple weeks and just making sure you’re still alive! It’s Christmas Eve my man, and some of the guys are gonna go out and get some food at the sports bar tonight if you wanted to come. I know you have no one to tell you otherwise now, so I expect to see you there my man! Love ya brother, give me a call when you can!” He heard a child laughing in the background, and the same child’s distant voice.

“Daddy is your friend okay?”

“Yes sweetness, he’s just sad is all—shit, forgot to hang up.” And just like that, the room went silent.

Sad was certainly a word for it.

He looked at the other voicemail for a few moments, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to listen to it. His curiosity got the best of him, for better or for worse.

“Hey John. Just wanted to give you a quick call to see how you are. Um…Merry Christmas Eve Eve!” She let out a small, awkward laugh. “Dad is taking me and mom out for dinner tomorrow tonight. Olive Garden or something, home of the infinite breadsticks! Hopefully I don’t throw up like that one time you and I went back in high school.” Another laugh, but this one was followed by an impressively empty silence. “So…I sent the papers a couple weeks ago and I’m pretty sure you should’ve gotten them by now. I already signed it so all you have to really do is sign it, and I think you can probably just take a picture of it and text it to the office if you don’t have time to do it physically. That’ll help finish up this whole, annoying process.” More silence. Johnathan felt like his lungs had stopped and he was struggling to breathe just a bit. He felt something growing in the pit of his stomach, like he’d eaten an anvil, and he thought it was going to need to go throw up. If anything, he hoped it would get the vodka out of his system. He didn’t know how much more of her voice he could bear.

“I know this is hard, I’m sorry. I just… I don’t know how to feel about it all either. I’m still just so…shaken up from it, y’know? I don’t know if this is the best remedy for it or not, but I know that after what happened, we need some time apart. Or at least, I do. I just…every time I even think about you, I think about him, and I just get sad all over again and I want to break down into tears and just hide in a corner. You wouldn’t understand I guess, to have a person inside of you on the cusp of coming into the world, just to never make it out. Do you know what that does to a person?”

Johnathan’s mouth fell open as a tear began rolling down his face. He looked at the lone picture frame on his wall, an ultrasound that he’d had framed the moment he got the picture. She thought it was a little tacky at the time. 

“I hope you understand why I feel like we have to do this. I just need some time I guess.” She sniffled on the other side of the phone. He knew it wasn’t for the same reasons he was about to break down. “I’ll miss that little tree though.” Another awkward laugh. “I just know you put it up this year instead of throwing it away. You really love that tree, don’t you? Do you remember the night my dad brought us that tree back when we were dating? I just remember—”

The voicemail ended to the tune of his phone vibrating, another call from Thomas. He looked at the green answer button that had appeared, and wiped away the tears that had started to multiply from his eyes before tapping the button lightly and raising the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Hey brother! How are you?”

“I’m…I’m okay.”

“You really sound like it. Come to the door, I got a present for you.”

“Why?”

“The hell you mean ‘why’? It’s the holiday season, dumbass.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in a second.” He ended the call and took a deep breath. He stared at the ultrasound for a few more moments, smiling at it. He kissed his palm and pressed it firmly on the glass that protected it. “Love you, son.”

He walked over to the door and when he opened it, Thomas was standing there with a large box in his hand, larger than the little girl that was standing at his side with a beaming smile. “Hi Uncle John!”

“Hey little lady.” He knelt down and the small girl lunged into his arms. “Good to see you, Daisy.”

“Where have you been? You weren’t at the Christmas party like you usually are!”

“Just been busy, don’t you worry about me.” He stood up and patted the small girls curly head before looking his friend in the eyes, who was flashing him a warm, but knowing smile. “Hey Tommy.”

“Hey John.” With his free hand, he put it out to shake Johns, to which he matched.

“What brings you by? You got a rocket launcher in that box or something?”

“No I wish! That’s illegal though. Move out of the way big guy.” Thomas inched by Johnathan with his daughter in tow and made is way towards the living room, paying no mind to the mess that Johnathan had grown accustomed to. Daisy was also acting as though blind to it. Thomas was a good dad. “Alright. Get this thing out of here.”

Johnathan didn’t hear him; he was focused on the shopping bag that was at his doorstep. “Is this bag yours Tom?”

“Yes! Daisy, go pick that up will you?”

“Yes sir!” She gave him a dramatic salute and ran through the apartment and past Johnathan to pick up the bag and follow the path back to her dad. 

“Anyways, you gotta get this tree out of here.”

“Why?” Johnathan closed the door and made his way to the living room, where he non-chalantly pushed the rest of his clean laundry off the couch and onto the floor behind it. 

“Well, where do you expect us to put this thing?” He took out a box cutter and opened up the large box from the top, then flipping it around the messy floor so he was holding onto the bottom. “Okay sweetie, grab the top of it and pull it out, and I’m gonna hold it steady for ya.”

“Okay!” She set the bag down on the floor and reached into the open side of the box and yanked as hard as she could as a green tree started to slide out of it. He’d forgotten how green they were supposed to be. The little girl was tugging with all her might, and just as the tree was about to fall out, she fell on her back as the tip of the tree landed on top of her. “Ewww it’s in my mouth!”

Thomas laughed as he raised the tree up off her. Johnathan felt himself smile too, it was nice. 

Thomas lifted the tree all the way up, though the tip of it was touching the ceiling. “Well you ain’t putting the star on it I guess.”

“You got me a new tree?”

“What does it look like? Yes.” He met Johnathan eyes and nodded. He wasn’t going to say it, but Thomas knew the implications of it all. “That old thing belongs in a trash heap anyways. Daisy, will you open that bag please?”

“Yes!” She started to take out a plethora of small boxes and loose ornaments until they almost covered up as much of the floor as Johnathan’s own mess did. The last thing in the bag was a golden star that looked much flashier than the one Johnathan owned. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Where are we gonna put the star if the top of the tree is the ceiling?”

“Good question.” He looked up and down the fully bristled tree, dramatically nodding and agreeing with himself before ultimately widening his eyes right as his daughter, who matched the motion herself. “Eureka!”

“Eureka!”

“We put the star on the bottom! Screw the typical tree, let’s have fun with this one, huh?” He smiled at Johnathan, who couldn’t help but smile. He hadn’t moved the old tree yet, but as Thomas and Daisy started piling ornaments around the front and back of the new tree, the old one was eclipsed by the new ones ironic liveliness as the star was placed at the bottom and was now shining directly at Johnathan and radiating around the room. And in the glossiness, he saw a reflection of himself smiling for the first time in months.