The Second Adult

The Second Adult

December 25, 2009

Don’t you just hate Christmas? I don’t mean the getting presents parts, that’s fine, but the seeing relatives part. And I don’t mean the relatives that you see everyday – parents and siblings – those guys are fine. I mean the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and hoards of annoying cousins. And it comes right after Thanksgiving. I mean, it’s bad enough we have two major family-gatherings per year, but do they really need to be back to back?

“We’re almost there,” my mother says from the driver’s seat of our red minivan.

I hurry to hide my plastic, purple diary in my luggage – I don’t need my cousin Brett stealing it like he did last year – I can continue my rant later. I zip my bag closed just as the car rolls to a stop.

“Mommy, I have to potty,” I hear my little brother whine from the backseat of the car.

“Well, someone’s got a small bladder,” I mutter and am granted with a small giggle from my younger sister.

“Claire,” my mother warns in her scolding-voice, “help Ben get his mittens on so his fingers don’t freeze and take him up to the house. Make sure he gets it in the toilet bowl. Then come back here immediately unless you want your stuff left in the car.”

“But what about my big bag? That one is too heavy for me to carry up the hill.”

“Well, that’s why I told you to pack only what you could carry. If you want to pack books, that’s your prerogative. You know the rule in this house is that everyone carries their own luggage.”

“Ben doesn’t carry his own luggage,” I retort.

“Ben is four, you’re fourteen. Now, come on Claire, you promised you were going to behave on this trip. As the oldest, I really, really need you to be the other adult on this trip, remember?”

My mother’s hazel eyes beg me to cooperate, and as much as my teenage instinct is to rebel, I know just how much she needs me to be the other parent right now.

“Mommy, potty!” my brother’s outburst interrupts the guilt I was beginning to feel.

“Okay, Ben. Let’s go,” I reply. “You got your gloves?”

Ben’s small body leans over the car’s consol, proudly holding up two mittens shoved on the wrong hands.

“Oh my god, Ben. What are you, retarded? The thumb goes in here. You’ve got the hands backwards.”

“Claire, don’t call your brother ‘retarded.’”

“Even though it’s true?” Alice pipes up from the back.

My mother’s hands fly up to her temples, trying to rub out the headache that is probably forming from our bickering.

“Alice, your brother is not retarded, he’s just four. Come on guys, can we please just get inside and unpack in peace? Claire, get your brother to the restroom, he’s doing the pee-pee-dance.”

I shove open my car door and pull Ben over the consol the rest of the way since the car is packed too full for him to get out his door. I place the blond munchkin on the snow-covered ground with a crunch. I grab his now correctly mittened hand and lead him up to the house, his small form hopping from foot to foot as he continues his pee-pee-dance while compensating for his Michelin-Man snowsuit.

I lift him up to ring the doorbell when we reach the top of the hill where the old, large house sits. Ben gyrates as we wait for someone to answer. I hear footsteps stumble towards the door and can smell the relative before the door opens.

“S’mry Chrissmiss,” Uncle Ted slurs jovially.

I roll my eyes. It’s not even three o’clock and Uncle Ted has clearly been at the bottle for a while now.

“Hi Uncle Ted,” I begin in the falsely welcoming high-pitched voice I save for relatives I dislike.

“Chlara! My favrite lil’ niece!”

“It’s Claire, actually. And can Ben and I come in, please? He really needs to use the bathroom.”

“’Course!” Uncle Ted smiles as he gives us room to pass. “Iz slike I always say, when you calls, Mother Nature’s gotta go!”

Ben sprints for the restroom before Uncle Ted can finish his sentence. I start after Ben, but am stopped by a stampede of Christmas sweater wearing relatives.

“Oh, Claire! How you’ve grown! I swear you must be another inch, at least.”

“Finally, we can start the appetizers!”

“You haven’t changed a bit have you?”

“It’s about time that ungrateful mother of yours got you here. The rest of us shouldn’t have to suffer because she insists on living so damn far away.”

“Sorry,” I interrupt, “but I have to make sure Ben is alright in the bathroom.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him,” my bitter, blue-haired great aunt Myrtle speaks up. “Every boy’s got to learn to go on his own sometime. We don’t need him making a hobby out of paired bathroom travels.”

“I didn’t know you could make a hobby out of a bodily function,” my second great aunt Doris replies.

“Doris, if anyone knows about making a hobby out of bodily functions it’s you.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by that remark, Myrtle.”

“Oh please, you caught the clap so many times it amounted to applause.”

I wince as I try to maneuver my way far from this awkward conversation and out of the mass of Santa and Reindeer themed wool, praying that Ben isn’t re-decorating the room with his urine. I almost make it to the edge of the pack when a strong hand comes down on my shoulder.

“Need some help there, Claire-Bear?”

“Uncle David!” I scream as I burry myself in his open arms. Uncle David helps pull me out of the mob just in time for me to see Ben returning with my ten year old Cousin Greg.

“I sent Greg to make sure Ben, was all right,” Uncle David reassures me. “How’d it go little man?”

“I went pee-pee!” Ben replies with excitement.

“Did you make it into the potty?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wash your hands?”

“Yes.”

“Way to go, little man!” Uncle David winks at me as he holds up a high-five for Ben to hit. “Does your mom need help getting stuff out of the car or has your dad got it?”

My gaze drops to the floor at the mention of dad.

“I don’t know about mom, but the rest of us sure need help with the car. Dad didn’t come.”

Uncle David frowns.

“Why not?”

I glance nervously at Ben and Greg who are hanging on every word I say. I know I have to relay this delicately so that I don’t tip off either of them.

“Daddy’s on a business trip with his secretary.”

Uncle David’s eyes double in size while Ben and Greg remain unchanged; my euphemism seems to have done the trick.

“Well, let’s go help your mother then,” Uncle David says with a new tinge of concern.

The four of us maneuver around the crowd of relatives still gathered in the middle of the hall, unaware that I escaped their grasps a full ten minutes ago. We slip through the door and begin the trek down the steep slope, meeting my exhausted mother and sister halfway.

“Hey, Jamie, need a hand?”

My mother drops her bags at the sound of Uncle David’s voice. She runs to embrace her older brother with tears in her eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Uncle David reassures her. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“It only happened yesterday,” my mother explains as she wipes a tear from her cheek. “We were beginning to pack and he – ”
“Why is mommy crying?” Alice interrupts, tears starting to form in her own eyes, sympathetically mirroring our mom’s sudden emotional response.

Uncle David gives mom another hug so that he can whisper in her ear, but not quietly enough for me not to hear.

“Let’s get you inside and then we’ll find a place to talk.” Uncle David releases his hold and turns to his son with a mock-military command. “Sergeant Greg, do you think you can rally the troops to come help Aunty Jamie with the bags?”

“Yes, sir!” Cousin Greg salutes as he dashes back up the hill.

“Come on, lil’sissy,” I smile as I bend down to wipe away Alice’s tears. “Let’s get your stuff inside so you can have some hot chocolate, okay? Ben, can you grab your lunchbox of Leggos?”

Ben runs back to the car and returns with his plastic Transformers box. Alice nods to me with a final sniff and together the three of us continue up the hill. I glance back at my mother momentarily to see that look she wears when we’ve done something good. It’s a look of pride. And though I know this is going to be the longest and most painful Christmas ever, I know it means a lot to my mother to watch me mature right in front of her eyes; to start to become the woman that I will someday be.