Jessica wants to hang a divorced couple from a limb of our
Christmas tree.
"I think that's kind of insensitive," I say.
"How is it insensitive?" she replies.
"She's remarried, he's remarried. Let it be."
"You are making too big a deal out of this," she says.
"I think you're not making a big enough deal!"
I should say for the record that we are not discussing just any
divorced couple. Our focus is a particular couple, longtime friends
of ours.
Jessica and I, after all, are not the sort of people to hang just
anybody from a limb of our
Christmas tree. We do have to know them,
at least a little.
"I'm doing it," she says.
"Fine," I say. "Go ahead. But when things go badly, it's your
responsibility."
She reaches up into the top branches and hangs their Polaroid
picture.
YEARS AGO, a good pal of mine named Chuck was visiting from
out of state. Jessica snapped a picture of the two of us together.
Somebody - I like to think it was me - had the idea to poke a hole
in its corner, thread a paper clip through it, and hang it on the
tree so that even after he left for home a few days before
Christmas, Chuck would be with us throughout the holidays.
We decided to do it the next year, and then the year after that,
and the taking and hanging of pictures grew into a tradition.
Now we have a box packed with photos. Rummaging through them, I
come across the first Christmastime Polaroid of Sam. He is maybe
three weeks old, the size of a peanut, and dressed in a red jumper,
and he's cradled, a little stiffly, in Peggy's arms. Peggy has
known Jessica since they were peanuts themselves. The two are among
a group of six women who have known each other since before
kindergarten. Seeing our newborn in the arms of such a dear friend
is to stand on the banks and watch as the river of life flows by.
Either that, or to wonder if Sam will ever forgive us for putting
him in that jumpsuit.