Write my own story.

I didn’t know my story. At least, I couldn’t see the ending. But I thought I knew where it began. In a room of my own.

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Singers put out Christmas albums. Chefs cook Christmas menus. Writers tell Christmas stories. This one is mine.

HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

by Jo March

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” I grumbled, lying on the rug.

White Christmas was playing on the TV, but this year the scenes of soldiers far from home made my throat ache. It felt weird to be watching the movie without Dad. Everything felt wrong this year.

I raised my head, glancing from the laptop screen—my mother’s, and thank God she kept her passwords in a desk drawer with her checks—out the funny peaked window at the view of fields and trees.

Good. Yes.

I loved having my own space.

Ten-year-old Amy looked up from the coffee table, where she was making something out of the scraps she’d begged from Miss Hannah’s quilting bag. Christmas ornaments, I thought. A mess.

Amy called up the stairs. “I’m going to Meg’s. You want to come?”

“In a minute.”

Or ten. Or twenty. I typed in fits and spurts, by feel, from memory.

“I’m leaving,” Amy shouted.

Christmas dinner, I thought. I should see if Dad was ready to join them. But the story drew me back, drew me in.

“We’re having turkey, too,” I said, clutching the phone, hungering for his attention. His approval.

Momma held up a finger. “One minute left.”

“I love you,” Dad said. “Take care of Momma and your sisters for me.”

I swallowed hard. “I will.”

I hunched over my requisitioned laptop as the light faded. Remembering, fixing, fiddling, deleting.

“We’re getting cut off,” Dad said. “Love you, too, honey. Merry Christmas. God bless you.”

“Merry Christmas!” we all chorused.

The connection cut off. Silence fell, as cold as snow. Beth’s eyes swam with unshed tears. Amy’s face was blotchy.

God bless us, every one, I thought, echoing Tiny Tim.

I stretched my neck. Shook my cramped fingers. Not done. Not done yet.

I put in our presents to Momma, put it all down in bursts of feeling and snatches of recollection, like setting words to music, like hearing my sisters singing in my head. When I was finished, my heart pounded as if I’d completed a four-mile run. A naked run. This was something different, all right. This was me. This was my own story, under my own name. Would anybody like it?

I read the blog over, breathless and exposed.

Before I could chicken out, I took a deep breath. Hit POST.

So quiet.

Against the drumming of my heart, I could hear the patter of rain on the roof and the sound of my father, moving around downstairs. It was dark outside. He must be hungry. Stiffly, I made my way down the attic steps.

Light shone from my parents’ room. There was an open suitcase on their bed.