After our father died, we just had to soldier on, as best as we could. There was mom, me, and Carla; each of us, like empty bottles on a shelf; three different ones, a coke, a Budweiser, and a Pepsi. God only knows they don't seem like they belong together. But there they are, anyway. A haphazard collection of some crazy person.

Now it was a couple of days before Christmas Eve again. I had carried all the boxes of ornaments up from the basement and stacked them on the coffee table in the living room, the way I always did. My mother was in the kitchen, baking her cookies. The tree was in its stand, the lights were piled around it in coils, and I was sitting on the sofa, waiting for Carla.

My sister, Carla, was coming home from college. We had always decorated the tree together, and after she went away to school, I waited for her to come home so that we could still do it together. We didn't talk to each other, but we'd string the lights and hang the glass balls, and somehow it didn't seem like Christmas without that. I don't know. It was one thing we had, maybe. And then mom would come in with the cookies, and we'd look at the tree together, listen to Peanuts Christmas music and play parchesi. Of all the days in the year, since my father died, it was the day I looked forward to the most, somehow.

The death of my father had been strange. He was an alcoholic, someone who was verbally abusive when he drank, and when he was not drunk, he spent a lot of time watching TV without talking to anyone. There were times he and my mother had violent arguments. Then mom would go live with her sister for a few days, and Carla would lock herself into her room. I'd sit in my room and watch hockey. Dad would pound on Carla's door, and I would go outside and fool around with my hockey stick and a puck in the street until he yelled for me to get in the house. Then he would call my mom, say he was sorry, and she would come back home. Carla would come out of her room, and we would play parchesi. And the whole thing would start all over again. Until he got diabetes, and died of a heart attack.

Carla did not attend the funeral, which raised some eyebrows, but to me, it seemed perfectly what one would expect. My mother stood at the grave with her hands folded, silent, with her head bowed. I don't know if she forgave him or not, for all the grief he gave her. She never spoke to me about it. To me, it felt more of a graduation, of sorts. I neither hated, nor loved, my dad. It meant that I had to help mom around the house and get a job to chip in for the bills.

After dad died, we saw Carla around the house a little more, but she never said much. She drew a lot of pictures. Dark pictures of dark houses with dark people standing around them, men with no faces, standing there with their legs apart, threatening, menacing. Dead trees. Night skies with a single moon and a couple of stars. Mom would look at them and say: 'that's nice, Carla,' and hang them on the refrigerator door for a week or two. I couldn't make heads or tails of that stuff, and when we were eating cereal together for breakfast, I'd shake my head and ask her what it was all supposed to mean; but she would just stare at me, in her black outfits and gothic make-up, and walk out.

When she graduated from high school, Carla told mom she wanted to go away to college. Mom wanted her to stay, and I said we couldn't afford it, but Carla was insistent, and since she got an art scholarship somehow, there was nothing we could do. It bothered me. I told her I had planned on Carla helping me out with mom, and money was tight. She told me it was something she had to do. She had to get away. I told Carla I wouldn't help her pack. I told her she would be back in two months. She went into her room and closed the door. But when she loaded up her car I did watch from the window. Carla was one of the few things I had left. What was Christmas going to be like, without her? Who would admire our little tree, with me? Who would play parchesi with us?

As screwed up as we were, Christmas was still Christmas, and Carla did come home for that. I would get the tree, put it in its stand, the way dad had always done, and bring up the ornaments from the basement. Carla would drive the four hundred and twenty five miles from her school upstate. My mother would make cookies, and when she finally arrived, we'd decorate the tree, listening to Peanuts Christmas music. Carla had always liked the Peanuts Christmas special, for some reason. Then we would exchange our gifts, and eat cookies on the couch. We'd play parchesi. We'd forget all about the Christmas my dad got so drunk he threw the Christmas ornaments into the wall. The Christmas mom and dad had a fight, and she left, and Carla locked herself in her room. The next day, mom would make a turkey dinner, we'd eat more cookies, and then Carla would drive the four hundred and twenty five miles back to school.

After a couple of years, I'd have to say that as sad as they were, they were the best Christmases I could remember.

Mom would call Carla and ask how she was doing at school, and Carla would say she was doing OK. She was learning how to paint. To me, it was taking her away from me, from us. I didn't understand painting. I was working in retail and had taken up drinking to forget about it. My mother didn't like it when I drank; it reminded her of my father, but we stayed out of each other's hair, for the most part. She spent her nights watching game shows, and I drank upstairs in my room, or out on the porch. It was the one place where I could forget about how lonely I was. But it was also the one place that scared me the most, the one place where I seemed the most like my dad.

That brings us to Christmas. I could hear my mother moving around in the kitchen, arranging things on the stove. "I think Carla said she was bringing someone home with her this time," she called out to me in the living room. I put down the parchesi box. What was going to happen to Christmas now? Would Carla decorate the tree with me, or with them? Would this stranger know how to play parchesi?

"A guy?" I asked. Carla had never had a boyfriend.

"No, it's one of her friends from art class," my mother said.

"One of those art students?" I asked derisively. I imagined someone with short, neon red hair like Carla, all dressed in black with a ring in her eyebrow.

"I guess so. She really didn't say much."

Carla never did really say.

I went back into the living room and looked out of the window. There was no sign of her car, yet. The neighbor's kids were playing hockey in the street, in between the parked cars. They were making a lively racket. I looked at the three wrapped gifts sitting in the corner, next to the bare tree. One for mom, one for Carla, one for me. This stranger would be watching us handing out our pathetic gifts. Carla would show her gift to her. She would talk about it with her. And where would that leave me?

"I guess that means she's going to be staying over," I said to mom, walking in to the kitchen.

"Well, yes. I told Carla she can stay in her room. Will you set the table for four? They should be here soon." My mother seemed happy with this whole thing. Happy for Carla.

"I don't feel like sharing Christmas with a stranger," I said, folding my arms. "It's a time for us. I like things the way they are. I wish you had said something to me about it."

My mother shot me a look and scowled. "Why should I ask you? It's my house. Please don't get like this, will you? She's coming and you're going to have to get used to it. Whatever you do, she's our guest. Don't make a scene."

"We're going to have to let her help with the tree and everything," I complained.

"What's the big deal? You always have to direct everybody. Why can't you just let things happen, for once?"

"We don't even know if she likes this kind of stuff. What's she like? What did Carla tell you?"

My mother straightened up from her cookie sheets and faced me down over the table. "Listen, your sister has finally made a friend. She's never had many friends. Can't you be glad that she has finally made a friend? Make them feel at home, will you?" My mother was getting mad, and since it was her house, and I was dependent on her, there wasn't much I could do.

"Whatever," I told her. I went into the living room, and opened the side board. I laid out the four plates, and all the knives and forks and glasses like my mother asked me to. But it looked like this was going to be a very different Christmas from the ones I had finally found so uplifting. Maybe those Christmases were gone already, after just a couple of years. Maybe what was left of our family was breaking up. I went downstairs into the basement and grabbed one of the beers I kept in the fridge down there. I came back up and put on my coat.

"Where are you going now?" My mother asked me.

"Out on the porch," I said. She knew what I was up to.

"Do you have to go out there now? They're going to be here soon, and then we're going to eat."

"I'm just going out on the porch, that's all," I said, letting myself quickly out of the front door. I knew mom hated it when I drank. My dad could be a son of a bitch when he drank. I didn't want to be a son of a bitch, but I felt the day going dark, and I wanted to hold onto the light.

Outside, it was noisy and cold, and in the sunshine, watching the kids playing their hockey game, I felt better. I sat on the porch steps watching the game and drinking my beer. I found myself wishing it were one of my kids scoring those goals, or making those saves. I finished the beer and threw away the can. I didn't want to go back inside, so I just sat on the steps. Out there, I was just a fan in the seats. A guy drinking a beer.

Then, I saw Carla's car drive up. Carla drove a little, black, Nissan Sentra. Black was Carla's favorite color. Sure enough, the two girls I saw in the front seat were all dressed in black. I watched Carla awkwardly parking her car. When the two girls, my sister and her friend, got out, I stood up. I expected Carla to be dour, but I must say I was disappointed in the friend. She had very short, spiked blue hair, which definitely hurt her looks in my opinion, and she was wearing a spiked dog collar.

I opened the door and yelled in: "They're here, mom."

Carla stole me a quick look, then, the two girls looked at each other and laughed. I was quite incredulous, and watched them take their bags out of the trunk of the Sentra with my arms folded. This was not the Carla that I remembered. This friend had changed her already. My mother came to the door to see her prodigal daughter.

"Go give them a hand, will you?" she hissed at me.

"This is the twentieth century," I murmured back, "Women can carry their own bags now."
My mother stared at me and scowled.

"Stop talking nonsense like that and go help them," she said. I could see that she was getting mad again and started down the steps for Carla's car. Carla looked up at me and frowned.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Mom wants me to carry your bags," I said.

Carla brushed passed me. "We can carry our own bags," she said. Her friend looked like she didn't know what to do. Then she followed Carla up the steps to the front door. I walked behind them with my hands in my pockets. My mother opened the door for them.

"This is Randy, mom," Carla said.

"Randy?" my mother said. She sounded confused, but she tried to smile.

"My friends call me Randy," Carla's friend said.

"Come on," Carla said to her, "I'll take you up to my room." She shot me a look over her shoulder. Then the two of them literally ran up the stairs, giggling.

My mother stopped me at the door. "You could have carried their bags," she said.

I shrugged. "They didn't want me to."

"Say something nice," she hissed at me.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because she's Carla's friend, that's why, and we need to welcome her to our house," my mother said.

"What if she's not nice?" I said.

"Stop it," my mother said. She gave me a determined look. Then, she went back into the kitchen to finish the dinner, leaving me to close the door, to seal me up in this Christmas that was going bad. I started for the basement again. I felt like a wanted another beer.

"Where are you going now?" my mother said. "We're going to eat."

"I'll be up in a minute," I said, trotting down the steps to get away from her stare. When I got down there, I cracked open a beer and chugged it as fast as I could. I was relieved to feel light headed. I looked out of the basement window. I could just see the kids still out there, between the cars, slapping the puck around. I wished I could be out there with them, or just stay in the basement, drinking beer, forgetting about all this. I was about to get another one when my mother opened the basement door and yelled down: "Go upstairs and get your sister." So I had to go up and get them.

The door to Carla's room was half open. I walked down the hall towards it. As I got closer, I saw them together in the room, Carla and Randy, with their arms around each other. They were kissing.

I froze. I didn't know what to do. Carla must have sensed something, because she turned and saw me, and came out of the room. She closed the door behind her. We stared at each other. Then she walked towards me. I backed away.

"What are you doing up here?" she asked me, under her breath.

"Mom sent me up to tell you dinner's ready," I blurted out.

"You saw us," Carla said. Her eyes did move away from mine.

"Who is that girl, Carla?" I asked her.

Carla looked back at the closed door of her room. Then she looked back at me. She was silent for a moment. Then she said, "She's my girlfriend."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I stared at my sister, the one sister I had, the girl who had gone through all those terrible Christmases with me, and decorated all those Christmas trees with me, as if she were someone I had never seen before. And yet there was something in Carla's face that I could recognize.

"You're gay?" I asked her.

Carla folded her arms. "I was going to tell you, right after I told mom. Don't say anything to her until after I talk to her."

All at once I felt angry and afraid, and sorry for my sister. And myself. "I don't believe this," I said, "I don't believe you brought this girl home with you. To stay in our house. What did you think we would say?"

Carla just stood there, not pushing me away, not running away either.

"Mom has a right to know," I said. "You should have told her about this. If you don't tell her, I will."

"I'm going to tell her."

"When?"

"When I'm ready. Soon."

"Soon? Carla, you should have said something before you brought this girl here."

"You can't tell me what to do. Or what to be."

"But we can say who comes into this house," I argued.

Carla looked away for a moment. "Just go downstairs. We'll be down in a minute. And you better not say anything until I talk to mom." With that, she turned and slipped back into her room. So there was nothing else for me to do but go downstairs.

Mom was putting the food on the table. "Are they coming?" she asked.

I sat down and folded my hands. "When they're finished," I said, cryptically.

"Finished with what? Unpacking?"

"Ask Carla," I said. I could hear them coming down the stairs, so I didn't feel the need to say anything else. Carla sat in the chair opposite me, and Randy sat opposite mom. Randy looked at Carla. Carla looked at me. I looked at mom. And mom sat down.

"Let's say grace," mom said.

We folded our hands in silence and let mom pray over our food the way she always liked to.

"I hope you like turkey," mom said to Randy.

"I like turkey," Randy said.

"Mom makes the best turkey," Carla said, keeping an eye on me.

We filled our plates in an awkward silence. I kept looking at Carla. Mom kept handing the food over to Randy.

"So are you an artist?" she asked Randy.

"Well, I'm an art student," Randy said, with a sheepish smile.

"She's an awesome painter," Carla put in, giving her friend a reverent smile. I fiddled with my food.

"What kinds of things do you girls paint?" mom asked.

"We're doing nudes now," Carla said, somewhat triumphantly, as if she could finally say the word.

I looked at Carla in the eye. "I'm not surprised," I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Carla said.

"Can we see some of your paintings?" I asked, slyly.

"We didn't bring any of them down."

"Why not?" I asked.

"You've never wanted to see any of my painting before."

"You've never wanted to show me any of them."

My mother was getting upset again. She hated it when we argued. "Leave your sister alone!" she hissed at me.

"It's true," I insisted.

Mom leaned over towards me. "You never have anything nice to say," she complained to me, "Can't you say something nice, for once?"

I don't know why, but I felt like the odd man out. Maybe I was also afraid. And that made me mad. "You're a weirdo," I blurted out at my sister.

Carla looked at her plate. Randy looked at Carla.

"Be quiet!" My mother yelled. "If you're going to be like that, then don't sit here. I thought you wanted to decorate the tree with your sister, like you always do."

"I did want to decorate it. With her." I said, still staring at her.

"I can decorate it with Randy this year," Carla interjected, shooting me a look.

"Then go ahead," I said, getting up.

"Where are you going?" mom said, looking worried.

"I'm going out," I said. I went into the hall and got my coat. Then I went downstairs to get another one of my beers, ignoring my mother's pleas to stop.

"He's drinking," Carla said, when I came back up. Randy bowed her head. My mother frowned.

"I shouldn't have let you put all those beers down there," mom said.

"It's a good thing. Because that's all I have left," I shouted, giving them a parting shot as I strode out the door.

I opened the beer out on the porch, where none of them could see me. The kids were done with their hockey game, and the sunny, cold air had gone quiet. The sun was setting, and long shadows were reaching across the street. Somehow, in those shadows, I thought of my father.

Once he had gotten drunk on Christmas Eve, and knocked over the Christmas tree, with all the ornaments on it and everything. Half of them broke. The whole thing was ruined. Mom yelled at him. He got so mad he threw one of her presents into the wall. I went out for a walk, I remember. In the cold, clear air, I felt wonderfully light, away from all that anger and pain. It was a feeling I was always trying to recapture, and the easiest way was to have a beer. I took a drink and tried to remember what happened next. I went back home, and mom and dad were talking in the kitchen. Carla had locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out until morning. I remember knocking on her door that night, asking her to come out so I could wish her a merry Christmas and give her my present. But she wouldn't come out.

After my father died, it seemed like it was getting better. Carla and I would decorate the tree together. Our mother would bake cookies. We would play parchesi. Those Christmases were the happiest Christmases of my life. Until now.

I walked around to the side of the house and looked in one of the windows. Carla was trying to untangle one of the spools of Christmas lights. Randy was sitting on the sofa, watching her. My mother was cleaning off the table. I shook my head. What was happening to the world I had left? Where would I fit into all this? I was beginning to wish I hadn't said anything. Were things any better, standing out there in the cold? It was like something my dad would have done.

I sat down on the steps and drank my beer. I always liked decorating the tree with Carla. I would string the lights, she would hang the balls, I put on the star, and she did the tinsel. It was a shared moment, it was the one thing we had. Now she had this girlfriend, someone else in her life, and I didn't know what was happening. I heard the door opening, and someone coming out on the porch. It was Carla. She sat down next to me. We looked at each other.

"Carla, did you tell mom?" I said.

"No," she said, looking at her feet. "Not yet."

"When are you going to tell her?"

"I'll tell her tonight."

"She has a right to know about this, about you," I said.

Carla sat there for a moment, looking at me. "You've been drinking," she said.

I turned and looked at her. "You're gay," I said.

She looked away. "I'm not going to talk to you if you're going to drink," she said.

"And I don't think you should have brought this girl into our house," I said.

She looked down at her feet again.

"Why did you bring her here?" I asked her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said.

"What are you trying to prove?"

"I'm not trying to prove anything," she said, "She's my friend."

"She doesn't belong here," I blurted out.

"That's like saying I don't belong here," Carla said.

"You could have come back by yourself, you know."

"I'm tired of being by myself," she said, "I have a right to life too. I asked mom and she said it would be OK."

"Mom doesn't know you are gay," I said.

Carla took a deep breath. "You remind me of dad," she said, "You know that?"

I winced. "Because I had a couple of beers? Come on, you know that's not true." I got up and finished my beer and tossed it in the garbage. Carla watched me.

"Dad scared me, you know?" she said.

"Well, you used to lock yourself in your room whenever he had a few," I said.

"You know why?"

"Why?"

She took a deep breath. "Because he used to abuse me, that's why."

I froze. "What?" I said. I stared at her, half believing her, half not wanting to. Carla was holding her knees under her chin, curled into a tight little ball.

"He came up into my room a couple of times. When he got drunk, and mom left."

I could see my father standing there, legs apart, pounding on Carla's door. I could hear him yelling. "He came into your room a couple of times?" I repeated, stunned.

"And he touched me."

I felt like running away. I felt like drinking another beer. I would be free from all of this. But looking at Carla, curled up next to me, crying, somehow, I couldn't leave. "Did you ever tell mom?" I asked her.

"No," she said.

I stood up and walked back and forth across the porch, my hands in my pockets, my mind racing. "So that's why you wanted to go upstate?" I asked her.

"I wanted to get out of this house. I needed to get away." she turned and looked at me. This was my sister. The sister in the locked room. The girl who had drawn all those dark pictures. The young woman who drove four hundred and twenty five miles to decorate a Christmas tree with me, play parchesi, and eat Christmas cookies.

"That's why you started hanging out with this chick?" I asked her.

Carla wiped her face. "I met her in art class."

"And you fell in love with her?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"She was somebody I could talk to. I was drawing those dark pictures, and she asked me about it, and I told her. Her father used to abuse her too. She gave me a hug, and we started hanging out. She understands. It was such a relief to find someone who understands."

"What about mom?" I asked her. "Don't you think she cares about you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "She doesn't understand. I can't talk about things like this with her."

I sat down next to her and looked at her. She looked back at me.

"You've got to tell her, Carla. And I don't know what's going to happen then."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what makes you think she'll be happy to find out you're gay? Don't you think she's been looking forward to seeing you get married? Don't you think she wants grandchildren?"

She wiped her face again.

"You're turning your back on her, on us," I said.

She looked at me. "What's wrong with you getting married and having kids?"

"Me?"

"Yea, you. What's wrong with you getting married and having kids?"

I hadn't thought about that. I didn't know what to say.

"You still don't have a girlfriend?" she asked me.

"No."

"Well, what are you doing with your time? Sitting around getting drunk? What do you want to do, end up like dad?"

I could see my father again, standing over me, legs apart, yelling, throwing the ornaments against the wall. Or drunk, sitting on the couch, watching TV.

I didn't have to listen to this. I could leave. I could go anywhere. I could have another beer. But when I turned to look at Carla, my sister, the one who had driven four hundred and twenty five miles to be with us for Christmas, somehow, I couldn't walk away.

Carla stood up. She wiped her face. "I'm cold," she said. "I'm going back inside. Are you coming in? Do you want to help with the tree?"

She opened the door and stood in the doorway.

"With you and Randy?" I asked her.

"Just give her a chance. She's nice."

Randy. The gay girl who had befriended my sister. "I don't know," I said. "I'll think about it."

"I'll see you inside," she said.

I walked around the side of the house again and looked in the window. Randy was sitting on the couch, looking at a box of our Christmas ornaments. Mom was sitting on the loveseat with a cup of tea, talking to her. I turned away.

I had to think. It felt like the ground was shifting under my feet, and I didn't know where to stand. What was happening to us? And if this was the end of all I had left, what would happen to me? Who was I without them? It seemed to me then that Carla needed me. She needed us. She had driven all the way back here with this chick, after all. And maybe I needed her.

As I walked around the porch, it felt like I was stepping out of a shadow, and into the twilight. The air was cold, and clean, and crisp. I felt light. As I looked off at all the streets I could walk away into, I knew that I wouldn't leave.

The door opened again. It was mom. She looked as if she had been crying, but had stopped. We looked at each other out there in the cold, fragile air.

"Did she tell you?" I asked her.

"Yes," mom said. She turned her hands over each other. She was almost shaking.

"So what are we going to do?" I asked her.

"What do you mean, what am I going to do?"

"Are you going to let that girl, Randy, stay?"

My mother looked me in the eyes. Her eyes seemed to be pleading. "Of course I'm going to let her stay."

"So what's going to happen?" I asked her. "What's going to happen to us?"

I heard my mother's heavy, uncertain sigh. "I don't know, but Carla wants you to come in and decorate the tree with her. And I want you to come in too."

I looked at her. For the first time in a long time, I didn't feel like having a beer.

"Alright," I said, and I walked back into the house with her.