My Christmas Ghosts

 

The ghost of an old white man is sitting on your chair out here,” my next-door neighbor Saru, a self-proclaimed psychic, said as he exited the front door of my apartment in Northern California. “That’s my father,” I said, cringing at the thought.

Christmas Past

We were having our first-ever Christmas Eve party. My sister and I dared not ask anything about it for fear of shifting our focus from the “out-of-the-ordinary” back to the “numbing ordinary”—hot, sticky Florida weather, tight-fighting small house, and each new day more familiar than the last. A year ago, in New York City, we knew sweeping changes every minute when we lived in a two-story house with a basement and attic.  We had Christmas at radio city Music Hall with high-kicking Rockettes and a nativity scene with real camels;  playtime at the neighborhood park, the site of the World’s Fair of 1962;  Halloween walks around the block to trick or treat and jump into piles of crunchy fallen elm tree leaves;  summers spent swimming in Mrs. Omura’s pop up pool;  daily 7 trains running nonstop past our front door and deeper into Queens; and Anthony, my first love.

On the plane to Miami, I cried so hard my body shook; when my mother reached over to whisper in my ear wise sayings about the importance of change, I shook her off violently.  I was seven years old, and I would not cry as hard until I was thirty-five and learned of my husband cheating.

The week leading up to the party, my father filled rented tables with garlic, onions, sour oranges, bags of rice and black beans, yuca, a loin of fresh pork, and boxes of Sangria, sidra, gin, whiskey, and soda.  Several trips were taken to the grocery store to replace finished bottles of sugar, salt, and herbs.  Cheesecakes with thick spoonful of strawberry jelly on top were purchased at the Cuban bakery.  My Caribbean mother seasoned, marinated, and refrigerated foods for Noche Buena, the mythical “good night” of Christmas Eve with feasting, dancing, and drinking far into Christmas morning I’d only heard adults whisper about the next day.  She swept and mopped speckled concrete floors; washed jalousie windows; and recruited my sister and me to help her push into the main bedroom the sofa, a second-hand store purchase made of thin, fading red and white velvety fabric.  “We can’t afford any of this,” she whined, even while giving into the rush of preparing for the upcoming event.

On Christmas Eve, the guests did not arrive at 9:00 p.m., as promised.  My father had already played his Bene More and Celia Cruz records several times.  He left several unreturned messages at his sons’ hotel. He paced the house several times, checking to see that the string of white lights he stapled on the eves of roof on the side of the backyard still emitted a healthy glow on the muddy dirt, overgrown avocado trees, and dirty lake,  

My mother heated and reheated the food. She checked our ponytails to make sure they were high and tight, and our dresses with the embroidered vests, were perfectly ironed. But it was all for nothing. My father’s seven fair and beautiful sons, all in their mid to late 20’s, with heads of big blonde hair and light eyes, arrived two hours later, and they swept into the house with their girlfriends hanging on their arms as if they had gotten off the wrong stop on the train. They didn’t take food or drink because they had other parties to go to. They dashed around the house in their suits, black ties, and scents of pine as if it was all beneath them.  My father said that it was their house, too. Come and stay whenever you want, he said as he pointed to this and that room in the house.  Thanks, pop. We know, pop. “We’ll give you a call, pop, when we get back, they said as if they couldn’t get out of our house fast enough.... They didn’t even notice my sister and me.  

Already it was too late for my seventy-year- old father with the four ex-wives, to make amends for swearing, cussing, and beating his sons. Already, they were estranged. Already, our hopes were dashed that this night would herald a new beginning and that our wishes would be granted: my father, a return to thrill of new and old relationships like the ones on the streets of New York City where an instant drinking buddy or new lover could be found around the corner; my mother, a stream of money flowing into our lives  like we had when my father worked as a contractor; my sister, was too young to care; and I wanted my anonymity back, like I had in the house New York city where I played on the second and third story floors of the house in Queens while my parents fought and hit each other in on the first-story kitchen, leaving broken glass and body parts in its wake. Now they pulled me into their brawls and accused me of causing them. At first, I thought it was a just an honest mistake; and I blamed the oversight on the small 1970s ranch house, a 500 square foot nightmare with three small rooms and one bathroom, for not providing any space for me to hide.

After the party, my sister and I wandered around listlessly as if checking out the ruins of a burned-down house like the ones in winter on Roosevelt Avenue when our neighbors’ boilers exploded. My mother picked-up and cleaned as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. My teary-eyed father walked towards his room and locked the door behind him, leaving behind an image that broke my heart forever.

 

 

Christmas Present

I am in love with the Danish captain I met online.

He will love me when I’m gone, and he can hold his love for me

against another woman’s love for him. I am in the shadow of his fiery,

red-headed Spanish ex, who set his furniture on fire when he cheated on her

with another stewardess. It is my turn to be with him.

Two weeks before Christmas, we run away from our countries and responsibilities

to be together for a weekend in Amsterdam on freezing nights with a full moon.

We are the new and improved Adam and Eve, strolling confidently around canals,

cafes, red windows, and peep shows.  I am quiet, but he rambles like a boy

who must explain the thrill of each ride to a soul just arrived on the planet.

“The prostitutes must be tested once a month for their health,” he says.  

His blue eyes sparkle.  His love/hate for women and violent temper

remind me of my father.  Unlike my father, he hunts Viking lands in Denmark.

“A good hunt always changes it ways,” he says about his buck,

and implies it about his women. I am not naïve: 

He scouts my deepest and darkest wounded imperfection: the one I cannot see or dig

from out my psyche, the one he will stalk, shoot, butcher, and hang like prized antlers

on the wall of his fallen conquests; the one that will make him proud and justified

for leaving me, like he left the others; the one he will gift me as sign of his deep love

and affection; and the one I will see and heal during the heartbreak of losing him.

I put my arm through his.  Midnight in Amsterdam suddenly feels cold, dark,

and dangerous.  I shiver.

 

Christmas Future

Dear Diary,

I walked on Ft. Lauderdale Beach the morning after Christmas day.  Atlantic Boulevard was busy with the rich White of the Northeast who were in town for the holidays. They strolled out of their high-rise condominiums with ocean views in search of coffee and breakfast, but I no longer resented them or held them responsible for the world’s woes or my woes. My hate was always intended for my White father, but that took years to realize. It was my father, not these other people, who called me racial slurs until the day he died. Racism has always masked itself as a one-size, fits-all band aid. 

The drama of being in love or hate with others had kept me distracted most of my life. Today, I felt as free and natural as the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, crashing gently on the shore, and leaving effervescent bubbles in its wake.  I tipped my suede hat with the gold band to the restaurant hostess who gave me an approving smile.

I was in town to visit my college-age children, but they did not join me on my stroll, even though I had invited them. I've learned to give them space and time to decide whether to love me, as difficult and painful as that has been.  During their childhoods, I treated them like my father treated me in my cold, detached efforts not to be like my bullying and violently explosive father--same difference and consequence. On most days, I work on forgiving God, forgiving my father, forgiving myself, and forgiving my children, all exhausting and unrelenting healing work. So today, I enjoyed the cool breeze and salty smell of the ocean, and I smiled joyfully when I wished a passerby a Merry Christmas.