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Glastonbury, 25 December 1988
It's not quite three in the morning, and Meg Ford is staring at the ceiling in her sister's study/storage/catch all/guest room.
She could blame the insomnia on the fact that her sense of time is thrown off by a seven-hour flight and a five-hour time change and a church service that got them back to Kim's house past midnight, and that would be legitimate, really. But the simple fact of the matter is that for most of her life, she hasn't slept well at Christmas. There's too much to stay awake and think about.
When Meg had been not-quite-four, she woke Kim up at four in the morning to tell her that Santa Claus had been there. (Meg had evidence to present. She had checked, and the stockings that had been flat and empty when she'd gone to bed were definitely fat and full now.) And a fourteen-year old Kim, rather than telling her little sister to go back to bed, had obligingly gone downstairs to see, too, and then made them both cocoa so they could sit by the tree and guess what was in the boxes.
By the time Meg was the one who was fourteen, it was one of those deeply ingrained, if wholly unofficial, traditions that spring up around holidays.
And in the last three years, it's become one of the many holiday traditions that has undeniably, though again unofficially, fallen by the wayside for the Fords. When Kim met them at the airport, it was the first time the four of them had been in the same room in nearly four years. That's a lot to ask traditions to withstand.
Meg's actually glad they're not trying to do this at her parents' house, with all those old habits and patterns and expectations lying in wait to trip them up. The Ghost of Christmas Past was cruel, in a lot of ways. It's much more a year to focus on the whole Come in! And know me better thing.
It would not be accurate to say it's been a perfectly easy, like-nothing-ever-happened visit. There have been awkward moments, certainly. But they've been a strangely easy sort of awkward, the sort that's diffused with wry smiles and phrases like I'm sorry, after you.
All in all, it's been a quiet couple days. They've been for walks in twos and threes and all together, and played card games, and filled Kim's nook of a kitchen with baked goods. Kim took them into town, to show their father the clinic where she works, and to shop, and to play tourist. They've had dinners at Kim's house, and lunches in the restaurant nearest the inn their parents are staying in because Kim's home is not really designed for three houseguests.
They're all having to relearn how to do this, to be a family, and sometimes it's very hard and sometimes it's as easy as breathing.
It's a mix, this Christmas, of new and old, of the tried and true and the new and the risky, compromises and oh but we have to's, the traditions that have survived and the innovations that will replace them.
And when the clock on the desk reads 3:04, Meg decides she's spent more than enough time staring at the ceiling. She pulls a sweater on over her pajamas, and steps into her loafers, and goes down the hall to the living area to see which of those lists joint sororal Christmas insomnia belongs on.
She could blame the insomnia on the fact that her sense of time is thrown off by a seven-hour flight and a five-hour time change and a church service that got them back to Kim's house past midnight, and that would be legitimate, really. But the simple fact of the matter is that for most of her life, she hasn't slept well at Christmas. There's too much to stay awake and think about.
When Meg had been not-quite-four, she woke Kim up at four in the morning to tell her that Santa Claus had been there. (Meg had evidence to present. She had checked, and the stockings that had been flat and empty when she'd gone to bed were definitely fat and full now.) And a fourteen-year old Kim, rather than telling her little sister to go back to bed, had obligingly gone downstairs to see, too, and then made them both cocoa so they could sit by the tree and guess what was in the boxes.
By the time Meg was the one who was fourteen, it was one of those deeply ingrained, if wholly unofficial, traditions that spring up around holidays.
And in the last three years, it's become one of the many holiday traditions that has undeniably, though again unofficially, fallen by the wayside for the Fords. When Kim met them at the airport, it was the first time the four of them had been in the same room in nearly four years. That's a lot to ask traditions to withstand.
Meg's actually glad they're not trying to do this at her parents' house, with all those old habits and patterns and expectations lying in wait to trip them up. The Ghost of Christmas Past was cruel, in a lot of ways. It's much more a year to focus on the whole Come in! And know me better thing.
It would not be accurate to say it's been a perfectly easy, like-nothing-ever-happened visit. There have been awkward moments, certainly. But they've been a strangely easy sort of awkward, the sort that's diffused with wry smiles and phrases like I'm sorry, after you.
All in all, it's been a quiet couple days. They've been for walks in twos and threes and all together, and played card games, and filled Kim's nook of a kitchen with baked goods. Kim took them into town, to show their father the clinic where she works, and to shop, and to play tourist. They've had dinners at Kim's house, and lunches in the restaurant nearest the inn their parents are staying in because Kim's home is not really designed for three houseguests.
They're all having to relearn how to do this, to be a family, and sometimes it's very hard and sometimes it's as easy as breathing.
It's a mix, this Christmas, of new and old, of the tried and true and the new and the risky, compromises and oh but we have to's, the traditions that have survived and the innovations that will replace them.
And when the clock on the desk reads 3:04, Meg decides she's spent more than enough time staring at the ceiling. She pulls a sweater on over her pajamas, and steps into her loafers, and goes down the hall to the living area to see which of those lists joint sororal Christmas insomnia belongs on.
no subject
She doesn't bother to ask how Alain got Kim's phone number. He's Alain. If he'd had to, he'd have called every Ford in England. (More likely, he looked in Meg's address book.)
"I'm not sure how I feel about my boyfriend and my sister having the capacity to conspire."
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And getting called by older siblings' names.
Meg looks at Kim over her the top of her mug.
"And the best was to take over Ontario.
"Does that count as conspriring?"
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"Are you planning to run a hockey game at Milliways and conscript Dave to help as practice for taking over Ontario?"
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"No."
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"I think you're safe, then."
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"I think though, the original question was 'Are you?'"
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"I'm not too worried."
A beat.
"Unless we hear someone on the roof, trying to get down the chimney. Then we might both be in trouble."
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"Oh, did you think I meant Santa?"
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"So are we expecting Alain, Dave, or the both of them to come parachuting in?"
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Not quite.
She looks back up at the ceiling.
"You realize I'm now going to spend the rest of the night listening for noise on the roof even more than I did the Christmas I was six, right?"
(Kim remembers that one, doesn't she? The one where Meg jumped at every single noise from about 7pm Christmas Eve on?)
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"Oops," Kim says, ruefully.
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And then adds, eyes wide and face not quite straight, "Do you think that was them?"
"What about that?"
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"Brat."
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"Very 1975 there, on the insults, Kim."
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The pillow goes flying back at Meg.
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"Like, all over the sofa."
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Meg starts to throw the pillow back and then stops, eyes going back to the ceiling.
"Do you think that was them?"
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"Nothing's stirring, Meg." A beat. "Not even a mouse."
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"If nothing else, we're stirring," she says, and throws the pillow back at Kim to illustrate her point.
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"So we are."