Props and Mayhem

Christmas morning.
Emme awoke late, of course, and padded down the hallway, sleep still in her eyes. Jaime wasn’t waiting under the tree. Obviously. It would have been nice, though, to have a softer, genuine version of him waiting. She didn’t want the real Jaime.
Yeah, she was a little bitter. But she was just about over it. She’d moved on with her life.
Mary and Jacob were sitting at the kitchen table, eating their breakfast and staring at the tree. The presents, wrapped in shiny paper and Santa-patterned boxes, were clearly torturing them.
Jacob rolled his blue eyes. “Finally. We’ve been waiting.”
Pouring herself a glass of orange juice, Emme looked over her shoulder and shrugged. Honestly, she was surprised that they hadn’t tried to wake her up. Maybe it was her post-Jaime “attitude” to blame. “I’m up now,” she said by way of apology, pulling out a chair.
“Don’t sit down,” objected Mary, gesturing to the tree. “Presents.”
Emme carefully brought her orange juice into the living room, following the whirlwind of the twins. She balanced the glass on her thigh, then thought better of it.
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty.” Emme’s mother entered the room behind them.
Emme smiled thinly and couldn’t help but roll her eyes good-naturedly. “Morning.”
Mary leaped forward to snag her first present, and the others sat patiently and watched her open it. And the business of gift-giving began.
After presents, Emme felt that she should hang out with her siblings for a while, to get in the holiday spirit. She took a marshmallow Santa from her stocking and bit its head off, feeling like a rebel for eating sugar before lunch. “Jacob, Mary, let’s do something fun.”
Jacob blinked at her from where he sat, surrounded by unwrapped presents and crumpled paper.
“I’m serious!” She grinned, and her face fell when he picked up one of his new gifts. Of course he’d rather play with his presents than hang out with her. “Okay. Later, then.” She knew that her Jewish friends went out for Chinese on Christmas day. Maybe they could do the same.
They went out for lunch to beat the dinner crowd. Everyone Emme knew got Chinese for dinner, so it made sense.
Emme’s mother even let her drive over to the restaurant. “Mary, what do you want to listen to?” Emme asked, her hand hovering over the CDs as they sat, parked, in the driveway. She remembered telling Mary that, that after driving with her, she’d love A Day to Remember. It wasn’t A Day to Remember that her sister chose, but Emme was still proud when she answered that she wanted to listen to Black Veil Brides. Her little girl was growing up!
The food was delicious—greasy and salty, but delicious. Emme and her family talked about mundane things and told jokes. And then, of course, she had to listen to her siblings complain about going back to school. Then the fortune cookies came out with the check and they all fell silent, busied with the task of extracting their fortunes.
Emme read hers aloud. “’A bright future can be yours. It is in your hands.’” She wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but she folded it and put it in the pocket of her North Face anyway.
Jacob turned his over and tried to pronounce the Chinese word printed there. “It means meat.” He peeked over Mary and their mother’s shoulders. Their words were milk and beets.
Emme’s word, when she pulled out the slip of paper again, was hope.

The rest of the day was a family day, as Christmas day should be. They visited Emme’s aunt and her grandma. All of them had dinner at their grandmother’s house that night as well. Emme left feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, and wholly satisfied. She may not always show it, because she was a hormonal teenager, but she loved her family.
When they reached the house, Emme immediately headed to her room to change into her new Black Veil Brides T-shirt. She wanted to wear it with her pajamas.
“Oh, Emme, I forgot!” called her mother. She came into the hallway from the kitchen, a package in her hands. “You got a package.”
It was probably a gift from one of their farther-away relatives, and Emme accepted the box. She glanced down at the return address, though, and squeezed the box hard enough that her knuckles grew white and the corner dug into her palm.
It had been sent from Paris. Paris, France.