A Reeling New Year’s Eve

So New Year’s Eve didn’t exactly go according to plan, and I finally feel like I can talk about it. 

When my feet touch the carpet that morning, I feel like it’s going to be a divine day. I have every intent to stay in my pajamas and work on my puzzle in peace. The goal: finish before the clock strikes midnight. It would be my own personal celebration, to bring in the new year with accomplishment.

The puzzle is going swimmingly. I post my progress nearly every hour for four hours. Soon I will have to venture out of my tower for food, but for now I am content with my sunny room and empty belly.

I always ask who is at the door, despite knowing everyone by their knocks. So when I hear a tentative, patient rap on my door, I know it doesn’t belong to anyone who lives in this house. It must be Boy. 

Boy. Just Boy. Because as a baby, my cousin was my only little love, my favorite guy. And he encompassed everything anyone could want in a baby boy. He was sweet, cute, and smart. A flirty little thing with every lady in every grocery store.

He appeared at my door the night before. 

“Mommy got in an accident. There was beef,” he’d said in response to my asking what he was doing there that night. Beef, otherwise known as any form of discord or confrontation, is the bain of sweet Boy’s existence. He will avoid it at all costs. And thus, the resourceful 7-year-old caught a ride to my house that night. We hung out for a few hours before he decided that the Xbox in the basement better suited his needs. 

And now New Year’s Eve morning has rolled into afternoon and Boy has come knocking in search of some company. He climbs up on my bed and we chat. I even let him “help” with my puzzle. My spirits are still high as I watch him press the wrong pieces into the wrong places. 

He beckons me to follow him. I am led downstairs to the basement where he attempts to teach me how to ride his new hoverboard. Twenty minutes. That’s all I’m giving for play time. Then I am going back to my puzzle. I repeat this to myself as time marches by. But, because I am a sucker for my Boy, twenty minutes has stretched into forty when my phone rings. 

I don’t recognize the number. I start to slide it back into my pocket, but decide it’s better to know who’s calling. Otherwise I’ll spend the next few minutes in agonizing anxiety wondering if I’d missed something important. 

“Ro?” a male voice says. It sounds like a request for a favor. I’m instantly annoyed. No one is impeding my time today. No one. 

“Who’s this?” 

“Yo, Ro??”

“Yeahhhh,” I huff. “Who is this?” It’s my cousin. Boy’s uncle. 

“You at work?” he asks. 

“No. Why? You sound weird. Why do you sound like that? What number are you calling from?”

“Yeh, well… Case is dead.” The weight he placed on the word “dead” knocked my stomach into my spine. He didn’t preface it. He didn’t say she “passed away” or use a wispy word like “gone.” He said “dead.” A heavy, leaden, solid, dead. 

“What the FUCK!?” I screamed before I could conjure a proper response. “You’re lying.” I said.  He sighed. 

“The paramedics are here now, but…yeh.” 

I don’t remember hanging up the phone. I do remember lying to Boy, telling him that it was a work call, that someone left our office unlocked and someone was in big trouble. I remember being doubled over, running up the stairs to my sister’s room, Boy not far behind. 

The puzzle is forgotten. I’m looking Boy in the eye. We are back in the basement. Knowing that I’m cultivating the last few moments of his “normal” life hurts my stomach. The weight of this burden makes my movements slow, my speech lazy. I’m relishing in his smile. I’m trying the hoverboard again and again for his amusement. I play every game he has on Xbox. I do his bidding for six hours, waiting for someone, anyone, to take the lead on telling him his mother is dead. 

He knows something is up. I suspect he even knows the manner of death. Mid videogame he lowers his controller. His eyes, so big and serious, lower to the ground. I ask him what’s wrong. 

“I know mommy sometimes takes pills and they make her sleepy. And sometimes they make her drive bad,” he says. 

“Yeah? What makes you say that?” I ask, attempting to sound as genuinely clueless as possible.” He shrugs as I rack my brain for moments that could have tipped him off. He could have heard the phone call. He could have heard me tell my sister, or my sister tell her friend. He could have just felt that something was up. He doesn’t leave my side for the remainder of the day. I try to barter: if he lets me shower he can have ice cream. He can have the world. No. He clutches my waist. 

Hours later his uncle tells him to lace up his shoes. 

“Can RoRo come?” he asks. 

In the car he wants to know what’s wrong, why his father is so sad. “Is mom in the hospital?” he asks. We can finally be truthful. 

“No.”

When the time comes to tell him I retreat upstairs. I can’t bear it. His howls are heard through the house. I give him time before I finally return downstairs.
Boy is leaning on his uncle’s shoulder like a wounded bird. He looks at me. 

“I know,” I say, and hug him. 

“I was sad,” he says, “but I’m okay now.” I wish in that moment that I could believe him. 

I am weary of letting my mother sleep that night while my father and I watch Family Feud. People die in their sleep. It’s 11:57pm and somehow our crowd has diminished to just us three.  No one is really thinking of the new year. We want to watch to the end. But I know the Johnson family is going to win Fast Money. They only need three points. It’s a done deal. We turn the channel with 20 seconds to spare. It feels strange to change a channel, to operate on someone else’s schedule and time, to have the risk and fear of missing something. I’m so accustomed to the on demand style of Netflix and Prime Video that I never think about being pressed to make a TV deadline anymore. 

I don’t register any ball dropping, though I know I saw it. I just keep thinking about how Case didn’t make it to 2020, about how different life will be now. I hear my father “Connie! Babe! Babe! Wake up!” Chills course up my spine. Unlike Case, my mother wakes and we clink glasses. Just the three of us. Perhaps not happy. But certainly a new year.