17. The Morning After

17

THE MORNING AFTER

QUINN

CHRISTMAS

Can you have a hangover from magic?

I shoot out of bed with a tension headache when I notice what time it is on the octagonal clock. That clock has followed me from my college dorm room to our first apartment and now to this house. This house that looks much dingier and shabbier since I saw the immaculate North Pole in all its storybook glory.

I did see the North Pole last night, didn't I?

It couldn't have all been some hyperrealistic dream.

Patrick is curled in the fetal position on the other side of the bed, snoring lightly and rhythmically like a white noise machine.

There are no hints of the portly, jolly man he was magicked into last night. No white whiskers sprouting out from his upper lip or enchanted cloak hanging in our doorless closet. (The door fell off in my hand when we moved in. It's a whole thing.)

Instead of focusing on last night's adventure, the repairs we may never get around to, or Patrick's big admission about what went down at Carver & Associates, I set my mind on that uncooked ham hogging up the fridge.

It's Christmas Day. At this point, it's going to still be in the oven when the guests arrive, but my mother-in-law's disappointment is a rickety rope bridge I can't quite cross at this hour.

I throw on my robe and slippers and pad downstairs, feeling like I did in college at the tail end of finals week, utterly drained. No amount of coffee in the world is going to be able to cure me of this or give me the amount of energy needed to prepare a Christmas-worthy feast.

When I enter the kitchen, I stop dead in my tracks.

"What in the love of Martha Stewart?" I ask myself. The kitchen has been transformed. Newly decorated, it's almost unrecognizable.

It's nothing like the luxuriousness of some of the kitchens we traipsed through last night while delivering gifts. The dated, faded wallpaper still needs replacing and that terrible oven still mocks me from across the room, but everything else is spotless and decked out to the nines.

The oval-shaped kitchen table has a red, patterned tablecloth draped across it with a runner down the middle and a decorative candle centerpiece. A sweet, vanilla bean fragrance floats on the air like someone was baking sugar cookies in here moments before I arrived. There are serving trays, bowls, and tongs set out on all the counters.

I wander through the kitchen, awestruck, and into the dining room, where never-before-seen tables stand with equally new Christmas-themed dining sets laid out in front of each non-wobbly chair. Beside every plate is shined golden cutlery and right above are priceless crystal glasses.

Our previously defunct fireplace is a roaring hearth that sends lapping waves of heat throughout the room. The rinky-dink Target tree I'd put up forlornly all by my lonesome has vanished. In its place stands a real, fragrant spruce so beautiful and impeccably decorated that it must've been stolen from the set of a Hallmark Christmas film. Either from relief or happiness, tears spring up into my eyes.

Taking it in, I sit down in the nearest chair and notice a tiny, folded card standing up on its own.

Dear Patrick and Quinn,

Merry Christmas! While you were out delivering gifts, we had our elves fly here and prepare your Christmas Day celebration. Consider all the decorations, foods, and fixes our gifts to you both for your heroic work.

Magically yours,

The Council of Priors

P.S. We look forward to hearing your response, either way, this evening.

I take a deep breath as my heartbeat slows to a steady rap.

"It was all real," I whisper to myself.

I can't tell if this is reassuring or breakdown-inducing.

On one hand, I don't think Patrick and I have had fun like last night in a long time. We were laughing and chugging glasses of milk and feeding each other cookies like we were judges on the Food Network. Even the less-than-ideal parts—nearly getting bitten by that rottweiler and plentiful chimney-less houses—were solvable riddles on our ridiculous quest.

On the other hand, Patrick not telling me he got fired is still a high-flying red flag. We never used to keep things from each other, especially not something as important as losing your job. While I'm sure it was hard and I can only imagine how distraught he was, I wish he had confided in me and let me comfort him. Isn't that what a husband is supposed to do? He didn't even give me a chance to be there for him.

Despite it all, we have a massive choice to make. This trumps moving in together, getting married, and buying our house. This means leaving behind our lives, our families, for a full year, to what? Play dress-up and make toys at the Earth's northernmost tip? Preposterous.

Only, it isn't.

Last night, I could tell from Patrick's questions to the Council of Priors that his interest was more than piqued by the offer. He sounded genuinely excited by the prospect. I can't tell if the gurgling in my stomach right now is from nerves, anxiety, or a lack of breakfast.

On that note, I make my way to the fridge. I shove aside the cooked green beans, the finished ham, and a dozen other dishes I would not have had the time to prepare myself. I grab a yogurt from the back, a spoon from a drawer, and read over the reheating instructions on a handy card left in perfect cursive by one of the elves.

A half hour later, I have to practically peel Patrick out of bed. I shower for longer than normal, relishing in the spray even if the water pressure leaves a lot to be desired. At the closet, I ponder over what to wear.

In college, I experimented a lot with my wardrobe.

Piece by piece, year by year, comment by comment, I disposed of those remnants of experimentation. Those remnants of me, really.

It started with Mrs. Hargrave commenting on a pair of costume pearls I wore to Mr. Hargrave's sixtieth-birthday party at a homey Italian restaurant in New Brunswick. I was coming out of the restroom when I overheard: "Does he need to be wearing those fake pearls? Uncle Luke and Aunt Aggie won't shut up about them. This dinner is supposed to be about your father."

"I'll talk to him," Patrick had said in the mollifying tone he often used with his mother. It was deeper than his normal speaking voice. I often wondered if he realized he was code-switching around his parents the way he sometimes did with Uber drivers or particularly bro-y bartenders.

That night, I wanted to say something. The heated bubbling inside my chest told me I had to say something.

Instead, I pivoted, unclasped the magnetic necklace, and dropped it in the trash in the bathroom before returning to the table.

Patrick gave me a funny look, his mouth full of spaghetti. After he swallowed, he asked, "What happened to your necklace?"

"It broke," I lied. "How are the meatballs?"

We never spoke of it again.

Then, I became a teacher, which is essentially like putting yourself in front of the Fashion Police twenty-four seven, except nobody is an arbiter of taste, they're all concerned about the dress code. About "the students."

So even though my hands are reaching for the silky red blouse with the tie around the neck and the sheer, puffy sleeves that Veronica gifted me, I put on my family-approved Christmas outfit, which consists of a cable-knit sweater and constrictive slacks.

While I'm fixing myself in the mirror, there's a knock at the front door. Downstairs, I don't even need to look through the peephole to know who it is.

My in-laws have arrived. Thirty minutes early.

I swing the door open, sporting a practiced smile, before they can knock again, as prepared as I'll ever be to play the consummate host. "Merry Christmas."

Mr. and Mrs. Hargrave look up at me. They are a barrage of bags and bottles and a poinsettia so huge that I don't know where we're going to put it in our house's tiny rooms. They scurry past me with hurried cheek kisses, leaving behind Patrick's ninety-year-old grandmother, who is wearing a crewneck with a Christmas tree embroidered on it and a light-up necklace.

"Nothing gets people quite as frenzied as Christmas," Nan Hargrave says, adjusting her large, circular glasses. Patrick gets his poor eyesight from his dad's side of the family.

"Tell me about it. Come on in." I help her with her walker over the lip of the door.

"I won this at bingo," says Nan, toying with her necklace, which is meant to look like a string of lights. The colors chase each other around and around. There's a clunky battery pack at the back of her neck.

"I like it," I say.

"Glad one of us does," she huffs.

I tilt my head at her. "If you don't like it, why are you wearing it?"

"Why are you hosting Christmas dinner?"

I nod in understanding. Mrs. Hargrave . She's the reason I'm hosting Christmas dinner. Patrick was only her proxy. Making him think it was his idea all along was her goal. I know her well enough to know that.

"She insisted, and you know what she's like when she insists," Nan says. "Sat through mass this morning looking like it was Mardi Gras."

"Can't you turn it off?" I ask, trying not to laugh at the sight of this short, elderly woman with tufts of thin white hair wearing a light-up necklace through the homily. At least Christmas isn't one of the sad Christian holidays.

"Like everything else in old age, it's not working properly. The button is stuck." She sighs.

"Well, why don't you let me hang your coat, and I'll take a look at the button in a little bit."

I'm not even through hanging up Nan's coat when I hear, "Oh, my God, Bill!" Then, there is a crash.

Patrick's family has been here for two whole minutes. There can't already be a crisis.

Then, a panic shimmies through my chest. Did Hobart leave something behind last night? Are there glowing, glittering, golden orbs of magic floating in the air? I won't be able to explain that away.

When I arrive in the dining room, I don't see anything except my in-laws standing in the center of a bunch of fallen folding chairs.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"The house." Mrs. Hargrave has a hand pressed to the center of her chest right beneath her own, non-light-up, necklace. They're pearls, of course. Real pearls. "It looks… wonderful in here. Did you do all of this?"

"I did," I say, because the alternative is telling her that a bunch of elves did it for us as her son and I went for a joyride in Santa's sleigh last night, which I don't think would go over particularly well even if she did take it as a joke.

"I'm amazed," she says. "Bill, take the chairs back to the car and don't bother with the other boxes."

"You got it, hun." Mr. Hargrave dutifully picks up the chairs.

Mrs. Hargrave says, "Quinn, I had no idea you had budded into such a homemaker. I came early thinking I'd give the place a facelift before the others arrived, but clearly you had that all taken care of." She pats me on the back as if she's proud of me before wandering over to the Christmas tree to admire it, leaving me to stew in my perceived shortcomings. I wish I could do this whole day on fast-forward.

I back out of the dining room in search of a bottle of wine and find that Nan Hargrave already has a lovely red uncorked and flowing into glasses.

"If I'm going to look this fun," she says, flicking the cheapy necklace again as I sidle up beside her, "I should feel this fun, too, right?"

"Right." I accept the second wineglass from her.

She clinks our glasses together. "Bottoms up, buttercup."

Only three hours until dinner, four hours until Mom calls and I can politely excuse myself to talk to her, eight hours until everyone leaves, and ten hours until Patrick and I have to make a major life-altering decision that precludes next year's Christmas from being canceled.

There's not enough Malbec in the world to combat this level of pressure.