Page 82 of Nothing Less than Magic
“I don’t think so. Ugh, what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to keep on keeping on, that’s what you’re going to do. In the meantime, no big changes, just focus on you. By this time next year, we’ll re-evaluate. Now come see our tree.”
That evening, Uncle Sylvester and Wallace take me to a posh restaurant in Beverly Hills. We sit in a gorgeous solarium with a twelve-foot Christmas tree that’s been decorated completely in fresh flowers. It’s beyond impressive, though I can’t help wondering how they keep the flowers from dying. Or do they change them out every few days? They’re real, I know, because when no one was looking, I snuck a feel.
We order a bottle of French wine and then another. The food is so good that I’m stuffing myself. Had I known how delicious everything was going to be, I would’ve worn more stretchy pants. I see Uncle Sylvester and Wallace exchange gleeful glances. They’re intent on fattening me up.
“Should we talk about Christmas?” Uncle Sylvester says. “In light of everything that has happened, I want us to make a concerted effort to spend it together. Lolly and the kids, too.”
Since my sister and I flew the coop, Uncle Sylvester almost always spends Christmas abroad. Last year it was a villa in Greece. The year before, he and Wallace got an Airbnb in Portugal. The previous Christmas they spent in the Swiss Alps.
He pins me with his blue eyes, so much like my mother’s that l feel a lump forming in my throat. “You girls need to work your stuff out. Life is too damned short to have all this pent-up animosity between you.”
I’m too buzzed on French wine to get into it about Lolly. As far as Christmas, I can’t imagine anything better than spending it with my uncle and Wallace.
“Where?” I say. “Where do you want to have it?”
“It makes the most sense to have it here. But if you’d prefer, we could all come to San Francisco. Whatever you want, Chelsea, as long as we do it.”
Before we leave the restaurant, they have my firm commitment. At home, or rather Uncle Sylvester’s penthouse, I change into lounge pants with a roomy elastic waist. Uncle and Wallace are night owls. I’ll try to stay up with them but don’t know how long I’ll last. Between flying and all the wine, I can barely keep my eyes open.
The three of us sprawl on the sofas, sleek velvet numbers that are more about form than they are functional. This is to say, they’re not very comfortable but look fantastic. The whole room looks like something out ofArchitectural Digest’s Christmas edition. Besides the tree with its delicate blown glass ornaments, there’s an antique menorah (Wallace is half Jewish) on the sofa table that reminds me of a museum piece. Wallace says he got it at a garage sale in Brentwood. That’s no garage sale I’ve ever been to.
“I’m turning in early.” Wallace feigns a yawn, then kisses me sweetly on the cheek. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”
I know he’s only leaving to give Uncle Sylvester and me time to talk alone.
The minute he’s out of earshot, I say to Uncle Sylvester, “Don’t you dare let that one get away.”
“Nope. He’s a keeper.” He rises from the couch and pours us each a nightcap of cognac.
Tomorrow I’m going to have one hell of a headache.
“I meant what I said about you and Lolly,” he starts, as I knew he would. “This has gone on long enough between you two.”
“I have no idea what she’s so angry about.”
“Yes, you do, and you have to work it out, because you need each other. You need your sister as much as she needs you, even though neither of you will admit it.”
I can’t argue with that. I miss my sister. “Did she go to Mom and Dad’s grave on the anniversary?” I don’t tell him that she did in my dream, that we talked about it, and she said she’d forgiven them.
He shakes his head.
“Do you still hate him, Uncle Sylvester? Do you still hate my father?”
“I never hated him. I am . . . I was . . . just so angry. Angry as much for him taking his own life as I was for him taking my sister’s.”
“Was?” I ask, because he made a point of using the past tense. “You’re not angry anymore?”
“At some point, you have to let the anger go, because it’ll eat away at you like a cancer. I loved your father, Chelsea. I loved him like he was my own brother. What he did was unthinkable, abominable. But all the anger in the world isn’t going to bring either of them back. The only thing I have left of them is my memories. To honor my sister, to honor all that she meant to me, I owe it to her and I owe it to myself to hold only the good memories dear and banish the bad ones forever.”
“When I was in the coma, when I was having the weird dream, you told me that Mom and Dad loved each other. Even in the very end, they loved each other. And that they would want to be buried together.” I let that hang out there, waiting to see what he’ll say in real life.
“In my heart of hearts, I believe that’s true. I believe we did the right thing.” He reaches out and takes my hand. “Despite everything that happened, they loved each other, but most of all, they loved you and Lolly more than anything else in the world. What I know above all else is that they wouldn’t want you to worry about where they were buried. And I know this, they’d be so proud of you, Chelsea, they’d be so proud of all you’ve accomplished.”
It’s my so-called accomplishments that are my focus as I fly home. A baby cries. Fifty-six minutes of non-stop wailing, and it barely registers. I’m too in my head, wondering about my trajectory, how I went from having patients to having clients. It occurred to me last night, after my talk with Uncle Sylvester, that as I morphed from marriage therapist to inspirational speaker, the nomenclature for the people I supposedly help, changed. How did that happen? It’s odd that it took me this long to notice it and for me to dislike it so.
Tomorrow is a workday, and I’m already dreading it. I tell myself it’s only because I don’t have much to do now that all my speaking engagements have been canceled. The days are spent posting inane inspirational sayings on my socials and deciding what Ronnie and I should eat for lunch. Austin calls four or five times a day, then winds up at my place, where we spend the evening deciding what we should eat for dinner.
