The Lucky Kind (14 page)

Christmas Day

W
hen I wake up, the first thing I think of is my father at the airport: foot-tapping, hair-tousling, smiling.

I am none of those things. I am what I would have thought my father would be: a nervous wreck. In the shower, I can’t hold on to anything—the soap slips out of my hand; the shampoo clatters against the wall so loudly I actually listen for the sound of the proprietors banging on the door to see if I’ve broken their hotel. And then I actually fall when I get out of the shower. I grab on to the curtain for support and it rips, but just a little, enough that maybe no one will notice, and then I wonder if that’s like a double sin, to break something on Christmas Day and hope no one notices.

And that’s when I remember it’s Christmas. That’s when I remember that today is not just Sam’s day. My grandparents will have stacked presents under the tree, my father will drink eggnog by the gallon, my mother will have written cards to each of us, my grandmother will have made a turkey and stuffing, and the house will smell like cinnamon.

Christ, I think, Sam will think he’s walking into a fucking Norman Rockwell painting.

I imagine, actually, that that would make him angry:
These
are the people who gave me up, he’ll think.
These
people? They could have kept me. They’re not poor, they’re not drug-addled, they’re not incapable. What, he’ll think, they just couldn’t be
bothered
?

That’s what I think I would think.

We rented two cars: one so that my mom and I can head over to Grandma’s, and one for my dad to take to the airport. So that he can pick up Sam, alone. I’m surprised to discover that I wish I were in the car with him. Just out of curiosity. I don’t want to participate, but I do want to see.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe they’ll hug and cry, and maybe he’ll look exactly like my dad and I won’t be able to tell which one is which, and maybe then I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Surely, at least, Sam, being from Texas, will fit in better here than I do, being from New York City.

But there I am, being snotty again.

In the car on the way to my grandparents’, I fiddle with the radio. There are surprisingly good radio stations in Ohio. I find one playing music my mom likes and turn up the volume. She looks over at me and smiles. “Thanks for that, Nicky.”

I shrug. “Well, you know, gotta be nice to you on Christmas.”

“Next year maybe you’ll tackle the drive from the Days Inn.”

I look at her, surprised. She started complaining about my taking driver’s ed the second I turned sixteen. I’ve always thought that she’s the one who babies me most: She can’t fall asleep until I get home; she tells me what to wear and metes out punishment when I drink; she can’t stand the thought of me behind the wheel; she literally refers to me as her baby. But then, she was the one who didn’t want to keep me in the dark.

“Mom,” I say slowly, “thank you, by the way.”

“What for?”

“Dad told me that you thought I should have already known about Sam—you said he should have told me years ago.”

She doesn’t say anything for a minute; she looks intently at the road. She hates to tell me when she and Dad disagree; her parents fought all the time when she was growing up.

Finally, she says, “I didn’t like having a secret. It made sense when you were younger, but then …” She stops talking as we turn in to my grandparents’ driveway. She unbuckles her seat belt and turns to face me. “You’re doing a pretty good job growing up, Nicky. You know that, right?”

I blush and look at the house in front of us. “Mom, just ’cause it’s Christmas and I let you listen to Carly Simon, let’s not get all touchy-feely.”

She grins at me. “You’re right,” she says, “let’s not. This day’s going to be emotional enough as it is.” She closes her eyes for a second, and it suddenly occurs to me that maybe she’s just as intimidated by this day as I am. She leans over and quickly kisses my cheek and then steps out of the car before I have the chance to say anything else.

My grandparents seem pretty nervous. My grandmother always cooks too much, but I convince myself that this year she made even more. My mother puts her hand on my shoulder, and I can feel through my T-shirt that her palm is sweaty. I go into my grandfather’s study and check my email. Then I look up the news to see what’s going on in the rest of the world. Anything to remind me that the whole world is bigger than my own world, and that much more exciting and important things are going on out there than in here. But then, like everyone else in the house, I hear a car crunching onto the gravel driveway. I force myself to stay put, stay sitting at the computer. I will not run out to the living room, near the front door, where everyone else is waiting. I will stay right here.

I hear the front door open, and then I hear that my father is making introductions. I hear a deep voice, much deeper than my dad’s, say “Merry Christmas, Mr. Brandt” to my grandfather and then “You have a lovely home, Mrs. Brandt” to my grandmother. And I hear my mother laughing, and I hear him call her Nina, and there is such familiarity in his voice that I know he and my mother have talked before.

“Where’s Nick?” my dad says. I imagine he’s pulling off his coat and taking Sam’s, and leaving them on the chair in the doorway. I know my grandmother will hang them up later, when no one is looking.

“Nick!” my dad shouts, and I can’t delay any longer. I think that since this will be the last time I stand up without knowing what my father’s firstborn looks like, I should do it slowly. I push my grandfather’s chair out from under his desk, feeling the wood scratch the carpet underneath it. My stomach hurts, and I will be very pissed if Sam’s being here spoils my appetite because I love Christmas food. And that’s the thought in my head when I walk into the living room.

I see my father first—he’s standing in front of Sam—and he’s smiling, and looking at me excitedly. Maybe he’s been waiting for this moment as much as he was waiting to meet Sam.

And then he steps aside, but before I see Sam’s face I see his hands. And then his hands are all I see because I recognize them; he has my father’s hands, which means he has my hands, which apparently means that I can’t tear my gaze away from his hands, can’t be bothered to look at his face, even with all this curiosity. I think I would have known him anywhere, just by his hands.

“Nick, this is Sam,” my dad says as I walk toward them. I wonder if Sam will hug me. I don’t know whether he hugged my grandparents—his grandparents—hello, or my mom (his stepmom?). I don’t know if he hugged my dad. My dad is pretty big on hugging. He puts his arm around me now as he introduces me.

“Nice to meet you, Nick,” Sam says, and he doesn’t go to hug me but instead to shake my hand, and luckily, since I’m staring at his hands, I see that, and I reach out my hand to shake his. And it’s when our fingers meet that I am finally able to look up, and at his face.

He doesn’t look like my dad. He’s taller, like I am, and much tanner, I guess from all the Texas sun. His hair is lighter than ours, and his teeth look very white and very straight. But he does have my father’s eyes, maybe not quite the same color, but the shape of them, the way they crinkle at the sides as he smiles when he shakes my hand. But I honestly don’t think I would have noticed that unless I’d been looking.

I don’t know what I thought he would look like, but I’m relieved to see that this is it.

“Nice to meet you,” I say back, the same reflex that reminded me to reach for his hand when he offered it.

“You too,” he says, even though he’s already said it.

My grandmother ushers us inside. We haven’t opened any presents yet. I kind of feel like we shouldn’t, not with a guest here, but my grandmother insists. Sam sits next to my dad on the couch. I look at them more than I look at my presents, even though I feel bad because I know how my grandmother agonizes over what to get me every year.

I feel a little ridiculous saying this, but Sam is really effing handsome. It’s like having a blond Superman sitting on your grandparents’ couch. Bio-Bro indeed, I think wryly. My dad can’t take his eyes off him. I think how proud he must be, having made something that came out so well. But then, I think, my dad would probably be looking at him like that no matter what Sam looked like. I’ve caught my father looking at me like that, too. But there’s something else in my father’s face; I think he’s relieved. Relieved to see that the baby he gave away is all grown-up, and seems to have grown up well, and happily. Relieved that his bad luck doesn’t seem to have turned into Sam’s bad luck. It makes me understand a little better why my dad was so excited to meet him, so excited every time he called.

My grandmother keeps going back to the tree to grab and distribute presents. She walks over to hand one to my dad and, much to my surprise, places one in Sam’s lap. “From Santa,” she says, the same way she still says it to me. Sam looks so surprised that I almost think he’s going to cry. He looks to my dad, for permission, I guess, to unwrap it. My father nods, smiling, and Sam undoes the string around the box. It’s a scarf from Banana Republic. I recognize it; I tried it on when I was looking for a scarf to replace the one I gave to Eden. A pretty impersonal gift, I guess, but from the look on Sam’s face, you’d think it was the greatest thing anyone ever gave him.

After dinner, just like on Thanksgiving, we play board games—today it’s Trivial Pursuit. For the first time, I think how lame our traditions must be to an outsider. Funny, I didn’t think that when Eden came at Thanksgiving, and I’ve never thought that about Stevie, but then it feels like Stevie has always been there, and it felt like Eden was always supposed to have been there.

Dad says he and Sam will be a team before anyone can say anything else. I guess he wanted to make sure Sam wouldn’t feel left out. Usually I play with Dad and my mom plays with one or both of my grandparents, but tonight they’re staying in the kitchen, taking their time cleaning up.

We sit around the coffee table in the living room. It doesn’t take long before my mom and I are creaming Sam and Dad. The funny thing is, though, they’re losing on things that I know my dad knows—he just can’t remember. We’ve been playing this same version of Trivial Pursuit for years (my grandparents refuse to buy a new one, and even though we always say we’ll bring an updated version from home, we never do). So half the time, Dad and Sam are getting questions that we had last year or the year before—questions that maybe you don’t remember right away, but then when you talk it out, you remember. That’s how my mom and I are winning. That’s how Dad and I won last year.

Sam can’t, obviously, play like that. He doesn’t laugh, like the rest of us do, when my dad gets a question about cereal and answers Grape-Nuts, just because that’s his favorite. Sam doesn’t know how often it happens that my dad’s random guesses are true, that you want him on your team because he has good luck, or that you want my mom on your team because she always knows the most arcane of facts.

Less than an hour goes by and my mom and I have three pie pieces, and they only have one. My grandparents want us to come back to the table for dessert, and my dad claps Sam on his back when they stand up from the sofa, as if to say Nice try and Good game. But he leans in toward me as we walk to the dining room and whispers, “That’s the last time I let myself get separated from you, old man.” And I almost laugh: Sam is really no competition.

I ride with my mother back to the Days Inn. Sam and Dad are still in their separate car. I wonder what they’re talking about. Has Sam asked him why, with such a supportive and understanding family, he gave him up to begin with?

At the hotel, they’ve lost Sam’s reservation, and believe it or not the Days Inn of Troy, Ohio, is booked solid.

“Lots of people come to visit their families,” Dad guesses.

We’re standing in the lobby. I want badly to get to my room, turn off the lights, and watch some bad Christmas movies. I want to be alone. My dad has actually raised his voice to the woman behind the check-in desk, for which he immediately apologized. I can tell he feels guilty, as though he can’t actually believe that he yelled at someone who has to work on Christmas Day. Sam is hanging on to his duffel bag for dear life. I know what I’m supposed to say, but the words are sandpapery in my mouth as I say them: