Chapter 111 LIGHTS ON THE TREE
Elias
“That is not how you put lights on a tree,” Alex said.
“I am putting them on the tree.”
“You are throwing them at the tree.”
Elias looked at the string of lights in his hand. Then at the small tree in the corner. The lights were dense around the top third. The bottom two-thirds were completely bare.
“I started at the top,” Elias said.
“You start at the bottom. Always the bottom. Otherwise, you run out of light before you reach the end.”
“That is an arbitrary rule.”
“It is the only rule. Look at your tree.”
Elias looked at the tree. Alex was sitting on the couch with his arms folded, with the expression of someone who had been waiting for this exact outcome.
“How long did you wait before saying something,” Elias said.
“Seven minutes.”
Elias pulled the lights off and started again from the bottom. Alex watched without helping. This was its own form of assistance. He was not going to take over. He was going to sit there and let Elias figure it out, which was sometimes the most useful thing a person could do.
The lights went on properly this time. Even loops. Each layer is slightly higher than the last. By the time he reached the top, there was still light left on the string, which proved the point without requiring anyone to make it.
“The box,” Elias said.
Alex passed it over. Decorations from the winter market. Nothing matching. Small glass things and wooden shapes and the ceramic star with the crack running through one point that Alex had bought because it was reduced and also because, he had said, imperfect things deserved a place too.
Elias hung the cracked star near the middle where the lights caught it from two directions.
Alex plugged in the string.
They both stood back and looked at it.
Not a perfect tree. Slightly lopsided. The pot a size too small. But the lights were warm and the cracked star caught them well and it was theirs, their first tree in their own space, assembled with a disagreement about methodology and resolved without either of them conceding the point directly.
“Good,” Alex said.
“Yes,” Elias agreed.
Des arrived forty minutes later already talking.
He came through the door mid-sentence about something on the bus and had not finished it by the time he saw the tree and abandoned it entirely.
“You have a real tree,” he said.
“We carried it up three flights,” Alex said.
“It dropped needles on every landing,” Elias added.
“Worth it.” Des went to examine it at close range. He found the cracked star immediately. “This one is broken.”
“Reduced,” Alex said.
Des turned to Sana who had come in behind him and was already sitting down. “Obviously he bought the broken one.”
Sana accepted the drink Elias handed her. “The tree looks good,” she said. Four words that carried the same weight as everything Des had just said.
Des sat on the floor near the tree. Sana sat on the couch. Alex is beside her. Elias in the chair. The arrangement of four people who had been in enough rooms together to stop thinking about where they sat.
The evening moved easily. Des talked about a commission, a department store wanting six pieces for their spring window, which he described as either the best thing to happen to him this year or a diplomatic incident waiting to occur. Sana talked about her rotations. Alex asked questions. Elias listened and refilled drinks when they needed refilling.
Nobody talked about anything difficult.
This was the gift of an evening like this one. No agenda. No processing required. Just four people in a warm room with a slightly lopsided tree and enough history between them that silence was as comfortable as conversation.
At some point, Elias’s phone buzzed on the arm of the chair.
James.
Flight confirmed. Arriving 23rd. Tell Alex I expect proper food this time, not whatever that was in July.
Elias showed Alex. Alex read it and smiled. “Tell him the pasta was fine.”
“The pasta was not fine.”
“Tell him it was fine anyway.”
Elias typed back: Arriving 23rd confirmed. Alex says the pasta was fine. He paused. Then added: Looking forward to it. Send it before reconsidering.
“James is coming on the twenty-third,” Alex said to Des and Sana.
Des looked at Elias. Not a full careful look. Just a glance that asked: " Are you okay with that? Elias gave a small nod that said: yes, more than last time. Des nodded back. The whole exchange took four seconds and required no words.
“Good,” Sana said simply.
The conversation moved on.
Later, when the drinks were nearly gone and the evening had reached the comfortable stage where nobody was in a hurry to leave and nobody was performing staying, Des picked up his glass.
He did not make a speech. He was capable of speeches but he read the room correctly.
“To the first Christmas tree,” he said. “And James is coming. And ordinary evenings.”
Sana raised her glass. Alex raised his. Elias raised his.
They drank.
The cracked star caught the light from two directions.
Outside the city was doing its December things. Inside the apartment, it was warm, and the tree was lit, and the four of them sat in the life they had assembled, sideways into each other over the years, none of it planned, all of it chosen, the kind of family that arrived without announcement and turned out to be exactly sufficient.
Alex’s foot rested against Elias’s leg across the small space between the couch and the chair.
Elias did not move away.
Small things. The whole evening was in small things.