*

This is how I spend my New Year’s Eve: curled up on the sofa with a platter featuring every type of cheese the market deli offers, glittery extensions pinned to my hair because maybe looking cute will solve all my problems, watching His Girl Friday with mascara tracking down my face. Perhaps I am a masochist. Perhaps I’m hoping to re-create a feeling.

Hildy the hamster is passed out next to me, her small stomach bloated with blueberry yogurt treats. She’s living her best life. “Good for you, Hildy,” I tell her, then swing my gaze to the television. The movie’s barely started. What did you just say? the other Hildy’s asking.

Her fiancé, who won’t be her fiancé by the movie’s end because she belongs with Walter, of course, replies, What?

Go on. She smiles encouragingly, and I mouth her next line: Well, go ahead.

Well, I just said, “Even ten minutes is a long time to be away from you.”

I glance down at the Kinollghy record player, which has turned itself on and lit up green. I halt the movie to go shut it off. As soon as I sit back down, though, it lights up again.

My focus sharpens on that dial as I slowly get up off the couch and float over. I shut it off. It turns itself back on, quicker this time.

I lift the lid, peering suspiciously at the red Merry Christmas record still housed inside even though it stopped working thirty attempts ago. Now all it gives me are scratchy squeaks.

I remove the album, gingerly mopping up sticky wine stains with a wet washcloth, then forage for the record sleeve. I locate it behind the player, tipped against the wall; and just behind that one is the second album I’d forgotten Marilou gave me as well: Merry Christmas II You, Mariah Carey’s second collection of holiday hits.

“Next year,” I promise Mariah, since I’ve listened to enough Christmas music during the past month to last me for eternity. But then my gaze falls to track 12: “All I Want for Christmas Is You.” The same magic song from Merry Christmas, but on a new, unspoiled record. I slide it out of its sleeve and decide to give this one a try, because what do I have to lose?

I mess with the arm, skipping around the track, reversing it once we’ve reached the end. I sweep the room for signs of what happened last time, but the lights don’t dim or intensify, and a man doesn’t appear from thin air. The only sound in my house is Mariah, singing forward and backward and performing magnificently either way. The version on this album is more upbeat, a little faster. It should make me feel bubbly and positive, but the lyrics only serve to highlight that awful feeling I’ve been struggling to keep at bay. Because all I wanted for Christmas was Hall, and now he’s gone.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur to no one. “I’m trying to keep my spirits up. I really am.” I begin to twist the volume knob counterclockwise to shut the record player off.