Christmas lights in March

They’ve been dangling for weeks. If it was up to me, I’d have been on them in January, but the boss says it is better to keep ladder jobs until the end of winter. No point in slipping when you don’t have to. Still, all those forgotten strings of lights in the park are looking a mess. The winds at the beginning of the month did a number on them, and now it’s me up a ladder, cutting them loose. Then I need to untangle them and wind them properly if they’re to be any good next year.

They did look special in December. This year, the city requested all white lights but they didn’t look boring, not at all. They looked like stars flown down from heaven and settled here in the trees. Fanciful, that, but that’s what I was thinking when I saw them all lit up before Christmas. I brought the girls down to watch. We don’t do much of that these days. They’ll have homework or somewhere else to be. There was a bit of a show for the lights and a van giving away free hot chocolate. We stood in line, our feet cold as fish in our shoes, but it was kind to give it away, just free for the asking. A bit like the lights. Something lovely that’s free for everyone.

Now it’s March and the tulips in the park will be up soon and they are free, too. I’m paid to plant them, but they bloom for free. I wonder about that sometimes. I mean, of course I’ve got to eat and feed the kids, but I feel sometimes like I work and I take but I don’t give back. My wife says guilt is a heavy habit, and I shrug because I’m not sure it’s guilt I’m talking about. The trees aren’t guilty once I take the lights down, and the gardens aren’t either before the tulips come up. Just a little bare. The lights and the tulips make them better. I’m not sure what makes me better. I don’t think I feel better much these days.

Hallway vigil

I used to feel it when the girls were small, and I’d tell them a story at bedtime, whatever book they wanted to make them laugh. They’d climb all over me in their zippered pyjamas, the ones with the feet and them all knees, elbows and sharp angles at first, then they’d settle and get heavy with sleep. After the story, I’d shift them into their beds carefully as if they were made of flowers. They always fell asleep so easily – we were lucky with the two of them. Friends said we didn’t know we were living and maybe we didn’t. Maybe we don’t. But either way, they were angels and I’d pray for them with a blessing and a kiss on the forehead. I still do it now – not the kiss because they are bigger – but I stand in the hallway outside their bedrooms and whisper a private little blessing for each of them before I go off to sleep myself. It’s a way of summing up the day. Settling it in and sealing it to keep safe. Like a string of lights settled back into its box. Ready for next time.

A version of this story is published in Katie’s book The Pieces We Keep: Stories for the Seasons (Iona Books, 2017).