Christmas for Dummies, Patrick S. [i can read book club .TXT] 📗

a time where it’s okay to be loving and give gifts.”
Now Maryann smiled. Ryan again saw the resemblance to his mother.
“Now, Ryan,” she said, “We’re going to play a game. It’s not one you’ll like, but I feel it is necessary for you to accept what it is that I’m telling you. Your mother wanted you to understand--she wanted it more than anything--and I am going to make you see logic.”
“Wait!” Ryan managed to say, but Maryann had already raised her hand.
“First we will remove your wife. And your son.”
Mara’s grip on his hand weakened. Ryan whirled on the couch and gasped when he saw both her and Eric shimmer and fade. Their skin grew transparent; their clothes vanished; he reached out a hand but swiped only warm air and dust.
Lacy cried out and fell off the couch. Her eyes were wide, unbelieving, and she looked ready to scream. Ryan groped at the air where just moments ago Mara had sat, as if he could dig her out of an invisible hole in the fabric of space itself.
“They are safe,” Maryann said from her rocking chair. “I have sent them away while we talk. My message is for you, Ryan Gregory, and no one else.”
“What...what are you? What have you done?” he asked.
“I am Maryann Glasser. Right now, I am bringing the message your mother wanted you to understand. And you will.” She stood. “You have been celebrating Christmas only because society tells you too. You are guilty of celebrating a hollow day without purpose or substance. Let’s say your daughter takes a turn for the worst.”
As she spoke those last words, Lacy went rigid on the floor. Her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth opened in a grimace. Veins bulged, pressing against her skin like miniature rivulets of a great river. Ryan could see the muscles in her neck taut as she struggled against pain.
He slid onto the floor and grabbed her, hoisted her into his lap. Her breathing was shallow and weak, almost panting.
“This is what could happen,” Maryann said. “Her kidneys could initiate other complications. Cardiovascular problems. Respiratory problems. This pain could happen.”
“Stop it!” Ryan screamed. “Whatever you’re doing, stop! Can’t you see she’s in pain?”
“I can see it, Ryan, and you would do well to see it yourself. This is reality, hitting you hard and fast. Her kidneys have shut down. Her body is revolting against itself.”
He felt for Lacy’s pulse. It was erratic. For a moment the pain seemed to recede, and she opened her eyes. Tears spilled across her cheeks when she looked at Ryan. Her mouth worked to try and form words, but all that came out was a whimper. She reached a hand up and managed to touch his chin.
“Please stop,” he begged, wrapping his hand around Lacy’s. Her green eyes darted between his and the ceiling, and her grip began to relax. “Please.”
“She is dying,” Maryann said. “You can see it. Life is leaving her body just as your mother’s life left hers. And what are you thinking at this moment? Are you reliving the wonderful memories you’ve had with her? Or are you wishing that you’d spent a little extra time really seeing

, instead of waiting for a holiday to see her?”
Lacy’s head rolled back onto his forearm, and her body started quivering. Like intense shivers, they racked her until Ryan thought he held a vibrating toy instead of his daughter. She began to utter sounds that were little more than slurred moans: “...ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah...”

Ryan grabbed her tighter, drawn by the conviction that if he squeezed hard enough, held her close enough, the spell would pass. Fueled by whatever powers Maryann Glasser gave, however, this was not a battle to be won.
Lacy’s eyes rolled in wild circles. Her keening stopped but was replaced with a raspy, hoarse cough. She breathed once, deep, and Ryan knew what was coming next. He loosed a scream as she exhaled the breath and fell still. Her eyes, those brilliantly striated emeralds, forever latched onto a space just above his chest.
As Maryann watched, untroubled by this event, Ryan bawled. He cried as he’d never cried before, not even last night when his mother passed. Seeing someone elderly die was different, because that person had lived life for a great many years and knew what it was to be happy, to love, to struggle, but a child’s death was a thousand times more heartbreaking, even if the child was a stranger, since that child would never understand what it meant to be free or to laugh with a friend in college or to accomplish a lifelong dream, and now here was his daughter, lifeless, drained of hope as callously as flour dumped from a sack, much too young for any amount of suffering, but it had come to her anyway--oh, it had piled upon her without mercy, with diseases and treatments and the disillusionment of dreams--because life was cruel, heartless, uncaring about wealth or the acquisition of property; now that Lacy was gone Ryan wanted to die, but he couldn’t even do that since his body had almost entirely shut down, so the only thing he could do was sag against his couch and squeeze his daughter’s hand and cry

.
“Your mother found out long ago the real meaning of the holidays,” Maryann said. “She sought to make every day a holiday, and make every person in her life feel special each time she met with them. You would do well to follow her example, Mr. Gregory, because Christmas for Dummies will lead you down the path you are experiencing right now: your daughter, dead. Grief will eat away at your heart because you weren’t freed from the shackles of society. Is that what you want?”
Ryan shook his head.
Lacy’s body against his legs vanished. He flinched, looked down, and saw only his curled lower body. No girl. No death.
“What...?”
“I sent you a present this morning,” Maryann said, gesturing to the basket squeezed between rocking chair and couch. “When you are ready, open it. My time here is limited, but I think you understand enough for your mother to rest.”
Ryan somehow got to his feet, even though he had little feeling in his limbs. He said, “Lacy...!”
Maryann smiled and wagged her finger at him. “She is a most precious child. I spoke to her earlier, as she no doubt told you. It was necessary for you to understand my words. Your mother’s words. Take heed, Ryan Gregory, and do not be a follower when it comes to your family.”
She walked out of the living room. Before entering the foyer, she turned to look at Ryan.
He saw his mother. Maryann’s hair paled into grey and her face sagged. She had a crooked smile, and Melanie Gregory stood on his foyer as she had stood there many times during her life.
Ryan sank into the couch as his legs finally gave way.
“Mom,” he whispered.
The smile fell and she walked out of sight.
He cried again.
The lights went out. The jangling of ornaments over the fireplace ceased. The void left from those noises was as deep and complete as a vacuum in the cold of space.
His eyes rolled up in his sockets and he slept.


Ryan Gregory awoke in bed with Mara slumped over his chest, her breathing shallow in sleep. His left arm tingled from the weight of her body. Light from a morning sun touched the covers.
Though his body was tired, he was alert almost instantly. He gently pushed Mara aside, pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt, and went into the hallway.
The house was without movement, and a few floorboards creaked as if in frustration at his early-morning trek.
Ryan went straight to Lacy’s room and entered. Thankfully, the rug disguised his footfalls.
She was curled on her side, left arm under her cheek, right leg curled to her stomach. The steady rise and fall of her chest under red Santa Claus pajamas was like seeing a reincarnation of the Holy Spirit. Ryan squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to break into tears.
He exited Lacy’s room and went downstairs to check on Eric. The boy was also asleep, sprawled with his left arm and leg dangling off the bed. His snores were soft. Ryan took a moment to watch his son’s slumber before retreating to the family room.
It was a dream? Or am I going insane?

He checked his cell phone. It was December 25. Christmas day. So yesterday really happened, or at least...

something happened

.
He slipped on a pair of shoes and went outside, down the sidewalk, and turned right.
No one else walked the street. Frost on the parked cars, speared by sunlight, looked like nacreous scales torn from some reptilian entity.
The Gilbert residence was a three story, Victorian-style home at the end of the block. Ryan walked up the sidewalk and rang the doorbell. He waited for a good minute before ringing it twice more.
He was about to ring it a third time when a portly man of about fifty opened the door and stepped out in his boxer shorts. The man’s belly hung well over the cuff of his underwear; cherries looked to have been crushed and implanted under his cheeks.
“What the hell do you want? You realize what time it is? And on Christmas morning, for crying out loud.”
Ryan, prepared to meet a petite woman with curly hair, was disarmed. “I-I’m sorry. Who are you?” he stammered.
“You got a lot of nerve mister. My name is Clay Gilbert. I know you--you’re the writer. Now what in the bloody hell do you want that you had to drag me out into this cold?”
Ryan took a step off the porch, backing away from the pluming breath of an incensed Mr. Gilbert. “Sorry, sir. I uh, I thought...I thought someone else lived here. Excuse me.”
He didn’t look back, for fear of seeing the guy lumbering down the sidewalk in pursuit of his unwelcome visitor.


After opening presents, exclaiming over the gifts received by each person--one of the perks of being a bestselling author was that Ryan could afford to give meaningful