Emmy's Christmas Eve

In You Are My Only, Emmy and Autumn spend Christmas Eve together in a hospital, Emmy reading aloud from a borrowed book.  This was one of my favorite scenes to write, and when the future of this book was in doubt, when it seemed possible that it wouldn't be any book at all, I would return to this scene and write it again and imagine that Emmy and Autumn were worth fighting for. 

This morning, Bonnie Jacobs writes to say that The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader has chosen to excerpt this scene on her blog. Peace, I think.

Without further anything, then, Emmy and Autumn at Christmas:  here.

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Farmer's Market, 6 a.m., Christmas Eve

It isn't Christmas unless you join the dawn throngs at the local Farmer's Market, where Andrew, the young man from the vegetable stand, puts your winesaps into a briskly snapped-open bag (while reporting on college), and the lady at the bread stands makes her most honest recommendations (Italian, she suggests, not French), and the purveyors of fish go into the back to retrieve the best of the long black mussels.  I arrived in the dark this morning.  When I opened the doors, the night sky was a brilliant purple pink, a color that would not allow itself to be photographed.

You just had to be there.

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Snow Falling: A Christmas Eve Excerpt

The promised snow is out there, falling, and I am feeling melancholy. This morning, before a long corporate-work weekend kicks in, I read the novel for adults through one last time. It is going, now, to Amy Rennert, my agent. Come the new year, we shall see what we shall see.

In the meantime, this from a final scene in the asylum. The year is 1955.

Someone had brought in a Collaro hi-fi and plugged it in with Christmas blues and we sat there, the crazy and the no inch short of sane, while Jimmy Butler sang “Trim your Tree” and Felix Gross sang “Love for Christmas,” and when Sugar Chile Robinson sang “Christmas Boogie,” Wolfie took up Virgin Mary’s hand in hers and a space was cleared on the table top and the two of them danced, Virgin Mary’s eyes a million miles away, but something close and near on her lips, something like a blessing, with Wolfie just laughing, Wolfie hollering a good time, and no more giggling, for that single minute, from Liesel, who wore holiday trim in the rolls of her hair and teeth in the pink of her gums. I kept Autumn near all dinner long. I suffered in my thinking about Baby.

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Christmas Eve Paella

It is two rooms away, waiting for me. The jumbo shrimp and the two pounds of mussels. The boneless chicken and the chicken stock. The short, white rice. The peas. The tomatoes. The white wine. The garlic. The magic golden red elixir, otherwise known as saffron. And in an hour, or maybe two or three, I'll unwrap and chop and marinate and begin preparing our traditional Christmas Eve paella.

Just now, in the dark, I am remembering friends. Those who have met life's hard challenges this year. Those grieving through loss. Those searching for a way to move past. Those living their lives with such grace and pluck that sometimes I cry for the sheer honorability of them, and for the smallness of my concerns set against theirs.

Just now I am remembering: This life of ours. This imperfect mix. This sheen and most essential gloss of Christmas.

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