This is my submission for the 2013 Christmas Story competition. Anyone who has read any of my stuff will know the topics I keep coming back to over and over again. So you'll find brother-sister incest, talk of anal sex, and the story will be long. There is sex here if you give it time, but there is also romance.
I hope you enjoy.
***
The last time I had seen my sister Jen was on her wedding day two years earlier. Back then she'd been dressed in white and crying tears of happiness. Mom had been there too, but even then she was losing too much weight, and we all knew it was only a matter of time. Now here we were on a wet afternoon on the Cape standing in rain turning to snow, six days before Christmas, and this time the clothes were black and the tears were of grief. We had come together to bury our mother. She had lasted four years longer than Pop, but I knew she'd have given those years up if it meant she could have gone at the same time as him.
I caught a sob from Jen and reached out, found her icy hand and gripped it. She wound her fingers between mine and squeezed. I didn't say anything. What was the point? We both knew what we were feeling and words wouldn't change a damn thing.
The preacher spoke about the good woman who had attended church every Sunday and made sure there were always fresh flowers, but the speech washed over me as I fought back tears of my own. There were only the two of us left now, and I was the man of the family. I felt it my duty to bear up, though God knows why.
Jen's hand trembled inside mine, but I hoped she was taking a little comfort. She'd been a better daughter than I was a son. I pretended it was because she lived forty miles away while I was in L.A., but I knew that was a lie. Jen had visited because she wanted to and would have done so even if our positions were reversed. I'd considered myself too important, too busy, too something. No, I knew the truth—too big an asshole.
The walnut coffin was lowered into the grave and more words spoken. Then we were expected to throw some dirt in after her. I stepped forward and managed it, choking back a sob, wiping angrily at my eyes. When I moved away Jen replaced me but her knees started to go and she almost toppled forward. I moved fast, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her up.
She pulled away and leaned over, picking up a handful of soil, but when she straightened her legs went again and I reached around once more and held her as she scattered it in, the sound sad and final pattering against the wood. Her body jerked against mine as sobs wracked her chest and I felt her stomach jerking in and out beneath my hand.
"It's OK, Jen, she's gone to a better place," I said, even though I didn't believe it myself. "She's with him now." Jen knew I meant Pop. I couldn't remember if Jen still believed or not. It wasn't the kind of thing came up in conversation on the rare occasions we got together.
I drew her back from the graveside, keeping my arm around her waist, not sure how strong she could be, but soon enough we moved away.
There were handshakes and hugs and kisses on cheeks and pats on backs and words spoken that I let wash over me. I nodded and thanked and moved on, Jen doing the same, the two of us the centers of our own little whirlpool of grief as people wanted to touch ours.
Within twenty minutes we stood side by side as more people filed past to help themselves to a buffet and drink. There was lemonade, beer, and hard liquor for those who needed it. Neither Jen nor I touched anything.
An hour later the room emptied and I wondered how many of the mourners had actually known Mom. Maybe a few of them—she was that kind of woman. I don't think I recognized anyone. The people we had grown up alongside had mostly cashed in their houses and moved to Florida.
I paid the caterers, adding a sizeable tip because money meant little to me and a lot to them, and then drove Jen back to the house where we'd been born and raised.
It was nothing special other than being worth seven figures. Pop had bought early and bought well, before Cape Cod became sprinkled with gold dust. The single-story stood on Ocean Drive, only a long spit from the ocean. Growing up Jen and I had fallen asleep to the sound of surf. A sound I still missed.
Pop had bought the craftsman bungalow new in 1952, the year they got married, and other than adding a second porch out back nothing had changed. The wooden siding got a coat of paint every two years and that was about it.
It felt odd unlocking the door that I never recalled being locked, but walking inside was like stepping back thirty years. I felt five years old, standing beside Jen in the family room as she reached for my hand once again.
I had almost made it through the day. Would have made it if she hadn't said, "Oh, Jack, what are we going to do now?" and the words caught in her throat. She turned toward me and I opened my arms. Her head rested on my chest and I let her sob, tears wetting my shirt, and then I started too, not noticing at first until I felt something drip from my chin onto the top of her head.
Jen knew, though. She hugged me tighter as I started to match her sob for sob. I don't know how long we stood that way, but it was Jen drew back first, wiping her face with her hands, sniffing hard.
"What we're going to do," I said, "is get changed, make something to eat, and then I might just drink until the hurt goes away or oblivion finds me."
Jen looked at me, her face pinched and red, and nodded. "Oblivion it is," she said, and I almost smiled.
***
When I returned from the bedroom—smiling, because without either of us thinking about it Jen had gone to her old room on the side of the bungalow and I to mine at the back—Jen was in the kitchen and I smelled something good.
I went up to her and slipped my arms around her waist and kissed the top of her head.
"What's cooking, sis?"
"Bolognese. Is that all right for you?"
"Sounds perfect. When did you find time to make that?"
She shook her head. "It's Mom's. I found it in the freezer."
"Oh." I let her loose and walked across the kitchen to the refrigerator, opened the door and peered inside, although I knew what I was looking for because I'd put it there myself that morning. "You want wine?"
"Rhetorical question, I take it. You got something stronger for later on?"
"What do you think?" I uncorked the Pinot, poured a glass each and went to sit at the table.
I watched Jen working. I'd always enjoyed watching her, and even today it was a pleasure.
"Hey—when did you lose weight?"
She glanced back at me and shook her head. "Have I lost weight?"
"Ten pounds," I said. "At least ten."
She shook her head again and returned her attention to the pot. "I guess I might have been skipping a meal here and there."
"Doesn't Marty make you sit and eat with him?"
I saw her shoulders tense and she stopped stirring the pot.
I waited, knowing I'd asked the wrong question, but there was no taking it back now it was out there.
I thought Jen might say something, but she kept on stirring and sipping her wine and after a while when her glass was empty I went across and topped it up. I rested my hand on her shoulder and said, "Sorry, Jen."
She gave a half-shrug, half-nod kind of movement and I went back to the table and filled my own glass.
Jen came and twirled pasta into two dishes, ladled thick, aromatic Bolognese over it. I sprinkled Parmesan and ground too much pepper onto mine.
Jen, watching me, said, "Nothing much changes in Jack-land, does it?"
"Why risk spoiling perfection," I said, then, "When?"
Jen took a mouthful of spaghetti and sauce, sucking it up between her lips. The spaghetti fought back and swiped across her chin and I saw her mouth twitch in a smile. I got up, brought kitchen roll back and put it on the table.
"How about you and Marsha?"
"Old news. Don't change the subject."
"So that's two marriages you've fucked up," she said.
"Wasn't all down to me," I said. "Yours?" I wasn't giving up.
"Mistake from the start, but sometimes it takes a while to realize."
"You looked so happy that day," I said, not adding 'And so beautiful.' It wasn't the kind of thing you said to your sister. A brother isn't meant to notice such things.
"Delusion," Jen said. "When did you and Marsha...?"
"Over the summer. She started getting home late from work, making excuses. Seems she'd found a younger man could give her things I couldn't."
"Like what?"
I lifted my shoulders. "If I knew that I'd have tried to give 'em to her."
"Wasn't money, then."
"Of course not."
"Sex then? Were you not fucking her enough, Jack?"
I stared at Jen. She'd always been open with her questions, but this was the first time she'd asked anything like this.
"How much is enough?"
