I wish you all a most joyous remembrance of the Birth. My celebration will be truly joyous, because I have received both an undeserved gift and an ease to the trouble with Pamela.
Yesterday I was with Pamela, who had chosen to go out for a meal with her friends. She was feeling depressed, thinking on the fact that she would be alone today, having neither her family nor Rohan to celebrate with her. Her friends were all very attentive, but they have their own families, their own plans, and so their efforts to cheer her—and mine—were ineffective. Eventually, they had to leave her, though Mal and Diana both drew promises from her that she would not drink alone.
I did not leave her, as I was not certain she would keep to the promises. She sat at the bar for some time, gloomily trying to decide whether or not to order something more or just to leave and let the poor bartender clean up. All of my energies were focused on her, as they have been for days, and exhaustion made it difficult for me to see anything else.
So it was an utter surprise when a familiar red head and blazing aura came up to my charge.
“May I sit here?” asked Freya.
I stared at her, though she burned in my gaze like the sun. She had snowflakes in her hair and her cheeks were flushed with the cold. A thick knitted scarf was wound around her neck, and she wore a bright red sweater dress, green leggings, and black boots with bells. She looked magnificent.
“Sure,” Pamela said without looking up from her empty glass.
How could she not have seen the brightness of the spirit who had approached her? I was stunned.
As Freya slipped into the neighboring seat, I looked around to Lubos, who was behind me positively radiating smugness. “I hope you appreciate this, Asa’el,” he said to me. “It took quite a bit of effort to get her here.”
“Why?” It was the only thing I could think to say.
Lubos’ smile became sympathetic. “It may not be our custom to give gifts at the time of the Birth, but I felt that you both needed and deserved one.”
“But it is forbidden.” The reminder was painful to me, but I had to say it.
“It is only forbidden that you seek her out, not that she come to you. Besides, you cannot leave your charge in such a delicate state.” Lubos spread his hands. “If our seniors truly took issue with this, they would have recalled you already, or stopped me when they realized my plan. They have not.”
It was almost impossible to believe. I turned to look at Freya again, because how could I do anything else?
It did not take long. After a few leading glances, Freya turned to face Pamela fully. “So what’s the deal?” she asked.
Pamela looked up, frowning. “What do you mean?”
Freya gestured around the nearly-empty bar. “Nobody drinks alone on Christmas Eve Eve if they have anywhere else to be.”
“You’re alone,” Pamela said, pointedly eyeing Freya’s drink.
“I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” she said, her cheeks going a bit red again. “We were on the way to meet his parents for dinner. Would you believe, he lost a tire just down the street from here, and the only bar between here and there had a pipe burst in the kitchen? Water everywhere.” She pantomimed spurting jets of water, which made Pamela smile reluctantly.
I looked at Lubos, who looked downright mischievous.
“So what’s your deal?” Freya asked again.
Pamela sighed and picked up an olive from the bar. “Oh, just major suckage in my life. No family, no boyfriend, no nothing.” She tossed the olive into her glass.
“Mm. Boyfriends are overrated.” Freya glanced over her shoulder as she said this, making sure Ryan hadn’t chosen that moment to make an entrance. He hadn’t, but I enjoyed the flash of her pale eyes. “But families…that’s tricky. Is it something you can fix between now and Christmas?”
Pamela snorted.
“Okay,” Freya said, correctly interpreting the negative in this. She stirred her drink thoughtfully. “So have you reached the point that you just want to say the hell with them all?”
“My parents, yes,” Pamela said. Then she hesitated. “Well…my mom, yes. My dad, maybe.”
“If it makes you hesitate, you shouldn’t write him off completely,” Freya suggested. She took a sip of her drink, then turned to face Pamela more directly. “Let me guess—long-standing argument. He’s ready to forgive and forget, but she’s not. Am I warm?”
“Pretty hot,” Pamela admitted. She too turned to look at Freya. “We had this huge fight last year—my dad said some things I didn’t agree with, I called him an ugly name, and we didn’t speak until just a few weeks ago. But there was all this bullshit that was going on before…I don’t know.” She leaned across the bar to order another drink. I did not try to stop her, reasoning that she had only promised not to drink alone. “I’m just bummed that I won’t see my brothers. And at least last year I had my boyfriend.”
“I’m telling you, boyfriends are overrated. But let’s talk about your parents for a second, if you don’t mind. Now, listen, usually the source of arguments between parents and grown kids is the parents not being able to see their kids as adults. That sound pretty familiar?”
Pamela received her drink from the bartender and took a gulp, grimacing. In her mind, her mother’s condescending tone echoed— “once you’ve apologized for your words and your actions…” “Yeah. Sounds about right.”
Freya nodded. “Now, usually it’s pretty harmless. There’s a few tiffs, some digging in of heels and maybe some hurtful things said, but then the parents realize that they’re not talking to a miniature version of themselves. Sometimes, though, it gets ugly. The point is, it’s a whole shift of their viewpoint, and it doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve got to give them some time.”
“How much time?” Pamela demanded. “And why should I put myself through this when I’m just going to end up stressing myself out?”
“As much time as it takes. Look,” Freya went on as Pamela spun away on her stool in disgust, “family is something special. However much you try, you can never write them off entirely. I haven’t spoken to my dad in weeks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he calls me tomorrow and asks me for money.” There was a wry twist to her smile, implying an old hurt that had long ago healed over into a scar. I looked at Lubos, but he was impassive. “He’s a bum, but he’s still my dad. And there’s always this little kernel of hope that someday he’ll come around.”
“Hope hurts,” Pamela muttered into her glass.
“Yes, it does. But regret hurts more.” She leaned closer to Pamela. “My advice? Be the adult they cannot see you as. Be the bigger person—keep reaching out, keep trying. Don’t yell when they do, don’t get dragged into little stupid things. Go see your brothers, and tell your parents that no, they can’t turn you away, because you have as much right to your family as they do.” She shrugged. “Yeah, you’ll get hurt. But at least you’ll know that you’re doing your best. And the rest of the time, live your own life. Don’t let them drag you down.”
Pamela considered Freya. “What are you, a psychiatrist?”
Freya laughed. “Nope. Just unable to mind my own damn business.”
That made Pamela smile. She lifted her glass. “To being the bigger person, then.”
Sharing her rueful smile, Freya clinked her glass against Pamela’s. “God help us.”
“And so He will,” Lubos murmured behind me.
I could not speak, for the relief was rushing through me at the change Freya had wrought in Pamela’s aura. Without even learning her name, my fire woman had worked a miracle: she had turned the pain and despair into a resignation bordered with determination and hope. That very night, Pamela went home and sent a message to her stepfather, asking his opinion on the argument between her and her mother, and extending the affection of family.
“I still maintain that I was right to disagree with you,” she told him, “but I am sorry that I did it in the way that I did. I hope that it won’t be enough to break apart our family. I’ve grown up into someone different from the person you knew, but I know the changes are for the better—I’m stronger, more confident, and more aware of what it means to be a good person. I hope that doesn’t frighten you, but makes you proud.”
I am certainly proud. And I am more proud than I can say of my fire woman, who for the third time has solved a problem that I could not have solved alone. To have seen her is a very precious gift, and I will hold the memory close for some time.
This Birth, I will sing with greater joy than I ever have before. The Father-King is so good to me, and to my very worthy charges.
In the words of the humans—though it has evidently been said, many times, many ways—Merry Christmas to you.