Because I don’t want to bother you with my idiocy when I don’t have anything revelatory to say, I’m just going to put this here and you can come across it when today’s miserable outcome seems less like a wound recently created. I’m sorry. It sucks. He was a good guy, with his crinkle tube and catnip banana and eyeliner. You did him a good turn, Molls, and kept him going and comfortable and, when it turned, you made the right call.
So, um, yes, here’s some Lorrie Moore:
Early Christmas morning, she woke Sofie and dressed her warmly in her snowsuit. There was a light snow on the ground and a wind blew powdery gusts around the yard. “We’re going to say good-bye to Bert,” said Aileen.
“Oh, Bert!” said Sofie, and she began to cry.
“No, it’ll be happy!” said Aileen, feeling the pink-posied tin in her jacket pocket. “He wants to go out. Do you remember how he used to want to go out? How he would mee-ow at the door and then we would let him go out?”
“Mee-ow, mee-ow,” said Sofie.
“Right,” said Aileen. “So that’s what we’re going to do now.”
“Will he be with Santa Claus?”
“Yes! He’ll be with Santa Claus!”
They stepped outside, down off the porch steps. Aileen pried open the tin. Inside, there was a small plastic bag and she tore that open. Inside was Bert: a pebbly ash like the sand and ground shells of a beach. Summer in December! What was Christmas if not a giant mixed metaphor? What was it about if not the mystery of interspecies love — God’s for man! Love had sought a chasm to leap across and landed itself right here: the Holy Ghost among the barn animals, the teacher’s pet sent to be adored then die. Aileen and Sofie each seized a fistful of Bert and ran around the yard, letting wind take the ash and scatter it. Chickadees flew from the trees. Frightened squirrels headed for the yard next door. In freeing Bert, perhaps they would become him a little: banish the interlopers, police the borders, then go back inside and play with decorations, claw at the gift wrap, eat the big headless bird.
“Merry Christmas to Bert!” Sofie shouted. The tin was now empty.
“Yes, Merry Christmas to Bert” said Aileen. She shoved the tin back into her pocket. Then she and Sofie raced back into the house, to get warm.
Jack was in the kitchen, standing by the stove, still in his pajamas. He was pouring orange juice and heating buns.
“Daddy, Merry Christmas to Bert!” Sofie popped open the snaps of her snowsuit.
“Yes,” said Jack, turning. “Merry Christmas to Bert!” He handed Sofie some juice, then Aileen. But before she drank hers, Aileen waited for him to say something else. He cleared his throat and stepped forward. He raised his glass. His large quizzical smile said, This is a very weird family. But instead, he exclaimed, “Merry Christmas to everyone in the whole wide world!” and let it go at that.
