The Sterling family home had a specific way of looking at Christmas that Wyatt hadn't known how to describe with words until he moved to South Carolina and suddenly had a point of comparison that hadn't existed before.
It wasn't just the tree Elena set up in the corner of the living room every year on the first of December with a precision that suggested she had the day marked on her calendar since January, but the way the light from the garlands shifted the tone of the whole room, giving it that specific warmth Wyatt had taken for granted for nineteen years and which, over the last eleven months, had unexpectedly appeared at various moments as something he missed without ever having named it.
His grandparents had arrived at four in the afternoon with the punctuality Rudy considered a part of basic manners, which in practice meant they always arrived ten minutes before the agreed time, which in turn meant Elena always asked them to arrive ten minutes after she actually needed them, though neither side ever said it out loud because that was one of those silent balances families develop over time without any need to mention them.
Rudy had walked in with his hat in his hand and had ruffled Wyatt's hair with his usual pat before greeting Ed with their signature handshake, which was brief and direct, saying the exact same thing as the longest hug any other family might have given.
Caitlyn had walked straight into the kitchen with the exact same movement she always did, leaving her purse on the hallway chair and putting on the apron Elena kept specifically for her, with the ease of someone who knew that kitchen as well as her own.
"The women are running this kitchen tonight," Elena had said with a firmness that admitted no discussion as she practically shut the door in the faces of Ed and Rudy, who were left in the hallway exchanging a look.
"And Wyatt?" Rudy had asked, gesturing toward his grandson.
"Wyatt too," Elena had responded without hesitation.
And that was how the three men of the Sterling family had ended up on the living room sofa with Max installed between Rudy and Wyatt, occupying the exact available space with the satisfaction of someone who knows nobody is going to tell him to get down tonight.
Ed had found Home Alone on the television with the comment, "they're replaying it again," which wasn't a complaint or a celebration but simply the observation of something that happened every December since Wyatt had memory, and the three had settled in with the inevitable resignation of men who know the kitchen is not available territory tonight and that the sofa and the television are the best possible alternative.
From the kitchen arrived intermittent smells of the dinner being prepared and the murmur of Elena and Caitlyn's voices overlapping over what was clearly a long conversation with its own rhythms of laughter, silence, and commentary that the three on the sofa could hear without understanding, and which none of the three made the slightest attempt to decipher.
Max rested his head on Wyatt's knees with a sigh that sounded more human than a dog's sigh should sound, and Wyatt distractedly scratched behind his ears without entirely pulling his gaze away from the screen, where Kevin McCallister had just triggered the first trap against the thieves.
But even though his eyes were oriented in the direction of the television, most of his attention was somewhere else entirely.
The phone rested on his right knee with the screen lit, showing Blaire's Instagram profile, which Wyatt had opened with no specific intention a few minutes prior and which remained there because closing it required an active decision he still hadn't made.
There was a new photo since the last time he had checked the profile, which was from that very afternoon, featuring Blaire sitting somewhere Wyatt didn't recognize with a book in her hand, a steaming mug of something on the table, and the light from what looked like a Christmas candle giving the entire image that warm tone Wyatt stared at for longer than was strictly necessary to view an Instagram photo.
They hadn't spoken since the previous day because Wyatt had spent the entire day in a mental state that wasn't exactly guilt, but something more complicated than guilt, with the memory of Nichelle's slap mixing with the memory of the name he had spoken in the truck, mixing in turn with the image of those blue eyes his brain had been producing without warning for weeks.
The question he had been asking himself for days and which still had no clear answer was what exactly it meant that at that specific moment of all possible moments, the name that had left his mouth was that one.
On the television screen, the thieves screamed as they tumbled down the stairs, and Ed, from the armchair next to him, let out a small laugh at something he clearly found ridiculous despite having seen it enough times to know exactly when it was going to happen.
It was Rudy who noticed.
He didn't say anything immediately, which was Rudy's way of doing things, but instead stayed there for a moment looking at his grandson with that sideways expression Wyatt didn't see because his eyes were on the phone, and then let out a low chuckle that didn't quite become a laugh but was audible enough for Wyatt to look up.
"What?" Wyatt said.
"Nothing," Rudy responded with the same expression and the same low chuckle, looking back toward the television.
Wyatt looked at him for a second before following his gaze back to the screen, but something in his grandfather's tone gave him no rest.
"What?" he repeated.
Rudy turned toward him completely this time, with that expression Wyatt had known his entire life, which belonged to someone who already knows something and is waiting for the other person to catch up. "Who's the girl?" he asked simply, his voice low enough so that Ed, who had the television volume at his usual level, couldn't hear them from the next armchair.
Wyatt felt the automatic impulse to say there was no girl, but something in the way Rudy looked at him let him know that response wasn't going to work tonight.
"It's nobody," he tried anyway.
Rudy looked at him for a full second before gesturing with his head toward the phone Wyatt still held in his hand. "You've been looking at that screen with the same face for twenty minutes," he said.
"I'm checking messages."
"You're looking at a photo," Rudy said, unbothered. "I know the difference."
Wyatt didn't respond to that because he didn't have a useful answer, and Rudy didn't seem to need one because he simply settled a bit more into the sofa, with Max looking at him briefly before closing his eyes again.
"You have the same face I had when I met your grandmother," Rudy said after a moment, in the tone of someone sharing an objective fact about the weather.
Wyatt looked at him.
"That face of someone who is thinking about something they shouldn't be thinking about at this moment," Rudy continued, still not looking at him. "And who at the same time can't help but think about it."
"Grandpa."
"I'm not asking you anything," Rudy said, slightly raising a hand. "I'm just describing what I see."
Wyatt lowered the phone and placed it face down on the sofa with a movement intended to be definitive, which convinced neither of them.
From the kitchen came the voices of Elena and Caitlyn overlapping over something that had clearly made them laugh, and on the television, Kevin McCallister called the hotel front desk with his best adult voice while Ed's television volume remained the exact same as always.
"What's so complicated about it?" Rudy asked after a moment, with his signature way of picking up a conversation as if the silence had never existed.
"She's in Boston," Wyatt said before he could decide whether he wanted to say it or not.
"Boston," Rudy repeated without any particular tone.
"And I'm in Clemson."
"That's geography, it's not an answer," Rudy said.
Wyatt looked at him sideways at that, and Rudy finally turned toward him with the full expression that, in his grandfather's facial vocabulary, meant he was about to say something he considered important and expected the other person to have enough intelligence to listen to correctly.
"Wyatt," he said, "in 1967 your grandmother lived in Amarillo and I lived in the middle of nowhere in Vietnam, and yet here we are."
Wyatt said nothing, looking at the television without really seeing what was happening on the screen.
"Geography is a logistics problem," Rudy continued. "Logistics problems have a solution if you want to find it."
"It's not that simple."
"It's never simple," Rudy responded. "But it's also not as complicated as you make it when you're afraid."
The word dropped onto the sofa between them with the specific weight of words that are true before the listener finishes processing them, and Wyatt felt something move somewhere in his chest at that, unable to entirely name it.
"I'm not afraid," Wyatt said, though even as he said it, he knew it wasn't exactly true.
"I'm not judging you," Rudy said with a calm Wyatt found irritating at times and necessary at others. "Fear isn't the problem; the problem is when you let fear make the decisions for you."
Wyatt looked at him sideways.
"How many times have you launched into a pass knowing there were two defenders waiting for you on the other side?" Rudy asked.
"There are always defenders on the other side."
"Exactly," Rudy said simply, as if that closed the argument.
Wyatt looked at him a moment longer before lowering his gaze toward Max, who remained leaning against his leg with a specific calmness, having decided his job tonight was simply to be present.
"I don't even know if she wants me to go," Wyatt said in a voice low enough so Ed couldn't hear him from the armchair where he kept watching the movie with the same level of attention as always.
"Have you asked her?" Rudy said.
"No."
"Then you haven't dropped any passes yet," Rudy responded.
Wyatt didn't respond to that because he didn't have a useful answer, and Rudy didn't seem to need one because he simply settled a bit more into the sofa, looking at the screen with the expression of someone who has said what he had to say and is willing to wait as long as necessary for the words to do their job.
Max chose that moment to shift positions, nudging his cold snout against Wyatt's hand as if he also had something to say about it, and Wyatt scratched him behind the ears, looking at the dark screen of the phone that lay face down on the sofa.
In his head, something that had been moving slowly since the night at Dawson's finally finished taking the shape of a concrete decision in the face of his grandfather's words—a decision Wyatt didn't say out loud and didn't share with anyone at that moment, but which settled into him with the specific solidity of things you know you are going to do even if you don't know exactly how yet.
It was at that moment when the kitchen door opened and Elena appeared in the frame with her apron on and the expression of someone who has just finished something important.
"Dinner is ready," she announced with a smile that reached her eyes, while Caitlyn peeked her head out from behind her with the same expression.
Ed turned off the television at the exact moment Kevin McCallister opened the door to the thieves and stood up from the armchair with the natural ease of someone who had been responding to that same announcement for decades.
Rudy stood up along with Wyatt, and as he passed his side, he gave him a single, brief, firm pat on the shoulder without saying anything else because he had already said everything he had to say.
Max followed them all toward the dining room with the contained excitement of someone who knows perfectly well that Christmas dinner invariably produces some favorable consequence for those who wait patiently near the table.
The Sterling family table had that specific appearance that only exists at Christmas, with the tablecloth Elena brought out once a year, the candles in the center, and the smell of everything that had been cooking since the afternoon now arriving full and unhindered. Wyatt sat in his usual spot between his father and his grandfather while Elena and Caitlyn finished serving with the coordination of people who have done the exact same thing in the exact same order enough times not to need to say anything to each other.
"Good," Ed said when everyone was seated, looking at the table with an expression that, in his vocabulary, was equivalent to any Thanksgiving speech anyone else would have given out loud.
Caitlyn took Rudy's hand at her side, Elena placed hers over Ed's, and Wyatt looked at the full table for a moment with everything on it before Christmas dinner began exactly as it always had.Logistics and Geography
Author thought
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