Free Arrowood by Laura McHugh

ruin porn. I was afraid, if I opened Arrowood up to strangers, that it would attract people for the wrong reasons, that they would be snapping selfies in Violet and Tabitha’s bedroom and looking for ghosts.
    Still, part of me was enticed by the idea of having a holiday celebration at Arrowood. My parents used to throw a Christmas party every year, up until that last year when we were packing up to move. They had a twelve-foot-tall spruce delivered from a tree farm, and Dad would haul the Arrowood family ornaments down from the storage room on the third floor. In kindergarten I made a paper angel with my handprints as wings, and Dad had placed it at the top of the tree, so high up that I could barely see it from the floor.
    While I had a composite image of those holiday parties, the only one I remembered with any clarity was the one when I was seven. The house smelled of spiced cider and fragrant pine boughs my mother had draped on the windowsills, banisters, and mantels. I wore a red and green Fair Isle sweaterdress with itchy red tights, and black patent leather shoes that I had outgrown. I grew tired of trying to get my mother’s attention to ask her if I could remove the uncomfortable shoes and tights, and eventually I snuck into the laundry room, peeled them off, and stuffed them into one of the closets. I put on a pair of gym socks I found in the dryer and hoped that my mother wouldn’t notice.
    When I came out of the laundry room I saw my father down the hall, standing under one of the sprigs of mistletoe my mother had hung for the party. He held a mug of cider in his hand, and he was kissing my mother, or so I thought. I hesitated, waiting for them to finish. Bing Crosby’s
White Christmas
was playing on the stereo, and I knew every song by heart. My father had been playing that album for the entire month of December. When he pulled away from the kiss, I saw that the woman was not my mother. It was Julia Ferris, Ben’s mom, her manicured fingernails gripping the lapel of my father’s jacket.
    I still haven’t forgiven you,
she said.
You have to make it up to me.
She gave his jacket a little tug, then let go and clicked down the hall in her high heels, back toward the party. Just then my dad turned and looked right at me, a pensive expression freezing on his face. He set his mug on top of Nana’s curio cabinet, next to the framed portrait of him and his brothers in matching blue sport coats and ties.
    “Hi, sweetie,” he said, walking toward me. “Did you see the mistletoe?”
    I nodded, staying right where I was. When he got close enough, Dad reached down and picked me up. He was warm and flushed from drinking, or because my mother had insisted on lighting fires in every fireplace on the first floor. His jacket smelled faintly of cigar smoke and Aqua Velva.
    “Mistletoe means you have to kiss. Isn’t that silly?” He grinned to show me how silly it was. He carried me over to the mistletoe and I looked up at the little bundle of leaves. My mother had tied it to a long red ribbon so that it hung just above our heads. My father kissed my cheek. His skin was smooth; Mom had made him shave before dinner. He picked up his drink and took a sip. There was a snowman on the mug, its neck wrapped in a jaunty scarf.
    “Want to try it?” Dad asked. He held the mug to my lips. It was warm, the liquid inside still steaming. I took a sip, but it didn’t taste like the cider my mother had given me earlier. It was bitter, and I swallowed hard to keep from spitting it out.
    He looked me in the eye a moment too long and then set me down. I slid along the wood floor in my socks, back toward the laundry and up the rear stairs, my throat burning from Dad’s drink. I crept into the twins’ room. They were wearing matching footie pajamas, sleeping in identical positions in their separate cribs—on their tummies, with their knees tucked under and their bottoms in the air. I curled up on the floor, listening to them breathe.