Colonizing Mars

Your car fishtailed in the slush that was already beginning to freeze, as if you couldn’t wait to get away after dropping me off at the library on Christmas Eve. I had just started reading the books I checked out when the librarian flashed the lights before closing and I found myself back on the street again, at twilight, waiting for you. The snow was falling faster now, soft as the pages tucked under my arm, but the cold got into my shoes. I shifted the books from hand to hand, too proud to set them down, too cold to feel my fingers, and still no sign of your car. The church bells had tolled nine by the time you showed up— not in your car, but in a taxi because you’d forgotten where you parked. You smelled like whiskey and snow, and swung the door wide and invited me in. Mom was almost finished decorating the tree when you stumbled and fell into it and brought it down, glass breaking like a gasp. She dragged you around the living room by your ear while the tree leaned drunkenly against the sofa, twinkling sideways, its broken ornaments catching what little light was left. I took my books to my room without a word, curled up beneath the covers and opened the one on colonizing Mars. Outside, snow kept falling like nothing had happened. I could hear you arguing through the wall and the tree never stood quite right for the rest of that year.