I remember coming home one day, finding him hanging there from the banister. I remember his face, how it was blue-ish gray from lack of oxygen. I remember I broke a carton of eggs (three shattered, one cracked) and a glass bottle of orange juice when I dropped the groceries in the front door. I remember having what I was later told was an anxiety attack.
I don't remember passing out and ramming my skull into the floor.
Some people can't get why I don't like Christmas. He left the tree as it was, tucked my gifts (and my mom's) beneath the tinsel. Like that wasn't him hanging in the front hall. That was a joke, something to scare me, and then he'd come out from behind the couch, slap my shoulder and tell me to pick my jaw up off the floor. He joked around a lot. But that didn't happen.
So I lie and say I'm a heartless soul who just doesn't see the point in Christmas apart from excess commercialization, tacky and meaningless gifts, and terrible music.
I buried my dad on Christmas Eve.
I didn't talk for two months after that, so my mom sent me to a mental hospital because she thought I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. That was mostly true, but the other part was that I started drinking enough to rival a seasoned alcholic.
Mom used to call me all sorts of things, but she never changed the way she acted toward me after his death. She treated me like a close friend, and insisted I'd "always be her baby" no matter who or where I was. She'd visit from time to time, but occasionally brought up Holden, and I stopped wanting to talk even more.
I met this kid in the hospital -- "the bin", he called it -- who was a pyromaniac. He'd set his own house on fire and killed his kid sister in the blaze. I can't remember his name, or what his face looked like, but he was one of the only people who talked to me while I was in. He was pretty scrawny, less like me and more like an anorexic, though he insisted it was because of fast metabolism. I called bullshit, but never to his face.
He talked to me more than I talked to him. I didn't ignore him, but he was one of those people who're content with the sound of their own voice, and don't need anyone to reply to their constant babbling.
Maybe his name was Paul. Or Tony.
The point is, one of the only good friends I ever made was in a loony bin. Go figure. My shrink, this jolly, bearded guy who looked like Santa's long lost brother, another reminder of Christmas that I honestly could've done without, deemed me fit to leave after five months of stagnancy and odd people and bizarrly satisfying food.
I didn't think I was any better than when I'd come in, but he was the doctor, so I was in no position to question his superiority. He should've given me a lolipop (or maybe a toy train) and a pat on the head before letting me go to complete the Santa image. (I told my mom this a week later and she laughed so hard she cried.)
Coming back home was strange. I barely went into my own room, and slept on the couch for months before my mom noticed. Which wasn't abnormal, considering her new life, her new boyfriend, her new potential step-kids. I needed more time, and time was all I had.
Fuck.
Three months after being back in my own house, I read in the paper that Paul or Tony threw himself off the University Bridge. He died from breathing in too much water because no one got to him in time.
I started smoking not long after my mom announced she'd be marrying Holden. I took my coffee black. I got a job, moved out of the house, and got my own apartment, but rarely left it.