Noelle is already asleep when we pull into the driveway. She nestles into my neck as I climb the front steps. White lights shimmer beneath the blanketed snow on perfectly manicured hedges. I ring the doorbell out of habit, or just in case. Then, I try the door. Open. In neighborhoods like this, they always are. 

     Upstairs, I pass a door that’s decorated with a wooden carving of pink ballerina slippers. The next door features a T-rex, or maybe an Allosaurus. I’m sure Noelle will let me know in the morning. I nudge it open and wince as a tinny toy siren erupts from a jostled fire truck. Noelle doesn’t stir. I pull back dino bedsheets and lower her onto the bed, hanging her coat on the bedpost and slipping off her green snow boots before tucking her in. I contemplate rummaging through the dresser for a new set of pajamas, but my energy is waning and there’s still so much to do. 

     I’m relieved to find the presents in the master bedroom. I hate searching for the gifts, especially in these big houses with so many hiding places. I imagine magic lives longer in homes like this. The thick walls, the solid wooden doors. So many buffers to separate the adult world from the child’s. 

     Two gap-toothed kids smile out from a silver frame on the nightstand. If things had stayed the same, those smiles would have filled in as the years passed. And those kids would still be believing in Santa long after Noelle had given him up. Kids like Noelle didn’t get the luxury of denying reality for long. But now, maybe things could be different. Those kids are gone, and Noelle is still here.

     I plop down in the impression left in the comforter, almost fast enough not to notice it. I flip the silver frame face-down and grab the glass of white wine next to it. I swirl the thickened syrup around once and place it back inside the circle it left, a clean halo in the dust. Only the other side of the bed is unmade. On the velvet comforter in front of me, wrapping supplies and a few unwrapped gifts remain. A book-mill copy of Jane Eyre, a Love Spell lotion set, and a pair of slippers lined with fake fur. One gift is wrapped with the name tag almost complete. I grab the pen beside it and to the “Mo-” add an “m.” Whatever the present is, it’s small enough to take. That’s one of the lucky things, isn’t it? In every house, there are always gifts addressed to me.

     For Noelle, I’m more selective. I glance at the gift pile on the carpet. Unlike Mom, Dad’s got about a dozen gifts and the kids have far more. I skip the big presents and open the shirt boxes and smaller items. For Noelle, I rewrap: a wool hat with a mohawk of dinosaur spikes, a pop-up book about aliens, and a backpack which I stuff with socks, a plushie of a dolphin, and a big bag of gummy bears. 

     Downstairs, I spread our items under the tree. It’s a real one, and the needles slough off in my hair. I could water it, but it’s probably too late. Plus, I’ve made myself a promise not to get hung up trying to revive what’s already gone. This is called Radical Acceptance and it's something I learned about just in time. It’s how I keep moving forward without getting stuck.

     I dump out the stockings one by one onto the white couch. For Noelle, I keep: cola-flavored ChapStick, a jar of purple slime, and a sheet of glittery dinosaur stickers. I carry what’s left and two empty stockings to the kitchen trash can, where I pause. A rotten stench wafts up through the plastic lid. I open the back door and fling the stockings out onto the snow, then set the trash can onto the stoop. I’ll have to start adding this step to my routine from now on if I don’t want Noelle to think she’s woken up in a dumpster every morning. I almost chuckle. Even after everything, I still need to take out the trash. 

     Tomorrow would have been a trash holiday, wouldn’t it? I picture the roads we’ve traveled so far, pristine white ribbons unmarred by tire tracks. I’ve had to navigate around a few stranded cars on the highway, but in the suburbs, there are hardly any on the road. Last week, I saw a truck flipped on its side in someone’s front yard, a family of white reindeer statues mowed down in its wake. But sights like that are rare. We can drive for hours, Noelle’s eyes wide as she points out dripping blue LED icicles or houses with perfect wreaths adorning every window. I can remember these moments, but I can’t recall a single garbage can on a curb.

     My empty stocking comes with me as I climb the stairs. I can’t remember if we have it in the van already, so I grab the bottle of children’s NyQuil from the medicine cabinet. Benadryl too, and a bottle of Flintstones Vitamins. For me: a prescription bottle with a faded label containing five Tramadol. In mom’s nightstand I pass on the Sertraline but grab the Trazodone. Underneath it, I’m pleased to find a journal decorated with watercolor paintings of blue hydrangeas. 

     On the nights when I waste too much energy searching for the gifts, or there isn’t a journal, or the shower has one of those rainforest shower heads, I skip the bath. But tonight, I need it. We got a late start yesterday and Noelle was fussy on the road, asking for more bathroom breaks than I knew she needed and trying to rope me into snowball fights and games of tag at the rest stops. At the last one, I finally relented to a few rounds of hide and seek. I sat down at a picnic table to count. With my head between my arms on the tabletop, I pressed my face into the snow and held it there. 

     I learned that at Intensive Outpatient Therapy too. T for temperature. I can’t remember the rest of the acronym anymore, but out of the “distress tolerance tools,” it was the only one that ever seemed to work for me. I’d used it often, after hour-long phone calls with the housing authority or fruitless pleading with social workers and employment agencies, I’d hold ice cubes in my fists or jump into a freezing shower. Once, I even bit into a ghost pepper. That didn’t get rid of my distress, but it did shift the source. 

     Now, the world is one giant sheet of fresh snow, every surface a reset button for my overheated nervous system. There are no more phone calls, no more appointments, no more paperwork, but there are still memories. There is still fear, and under it, regret, and sorrow, and rage.

     Someday, maybe I’ll teach the temperature trick to Noelle. Or maybe I’ll never have to. Maybe she’ll never experience the levels of distress that require handbooks and acronyms. Maybe her memories will be so full of joy and wonder that she won’t need to balance her emotional scales with mood stabilizers and therapy modules. I think of the imprints of my face that I’ve left behind in snowbanks and car hoods, a trail of porcelain masks discarded along the interstate as we travel south. Proof that I’m still here, still clawing my way forward.

     There are masks in the bathroom closet, the skincare kind. I choose one that’s supposed to be soothing. I dig two fingers into the goo and slop on way too much because it still feels like luxury to waste things. There’s a glass carafe labeled “bath milk” and I empty it into the tub. When I’ve run the water, it’s nearly opaque. A deep white bowl full of milk. I could run downstairs and grab cereal if I wanted. I can do whatever I want, I think, which always makes me feel good for a second before it makes me feel scared. I picture Noelle in her new wool hat with the dinosaur spikes. I get into the bath.

     This mom’s journal isn’t too promising. Dad doesn’t look at her the way he used to and she’s trying to solve the problem in the usual ways. She tries Pilates and bemoans her new diet. She gets a haircut that he doesn’t notice, and then a hair color that he does notice, but doesn’t like. The girls at Pilates do, though, and they invite her out to happy hour. She might go, but someone has to do the Christmas shopping and Dad says she’s always been the one to handle that. He says no matter what she looks like, she’ll always be an amazing mom. 

     If there are clues in the journal, I don’t see them. I’m not sure I’m even looking for them anymore. I used to think these diaries, the secret thoughts of teenage girls and lonely women, could provide some hidden knowledge, some explanation of why everyone was gone, and Noelle and I were still here. But no matter how many confessions I read, it’s never clear which of us deserves to be rewarded and which should be punished. Whichever side we’ve landed on, I can’t unflip the coin. But for Noelle, and maybe even for me, I have to prove we’re on the right side.

     Tonight, there are silk pajamas to sleep in and fuzzy purple socks. I choose tomorrow’s outfit from the closet, a long corduroy dress with embroidered poinsettias on the chest. Tomorrow, it’ll be Christmas morning. And the day after that, too. It’ll be Christmas as long as Noelle can still believe it is, and then I’ll think of something else. I fall asleep thinking of my present, the little rectangular box beneath the tree, addressed to Mom. I hope it’s a necklace.