Christmas Splinters

In the dream, she leans in, my friend who is nearly twice my age, who could be my aunt or mother but is more like an older sister, and says something I can't remember, quiet words a nurse might murmur to a person in pain. I lean back, and she slips her hand inside me.

* * *
Twenty-six years ago, I tell my mother my father touched me while I was sleeping. They are separated. It is Christmas vacation. I am eight. Sugar plum fairies are supposed to be dancing in my head.

* * *
Her fingers float along my walls, tips skirting upwards while she talks. It is strange to be with her like this but also not strange at all. She wants nothing from me. Even now, she closes her eyes to give me privacy.

* * *
It is Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Tiny red and green bulbs glow steadily from the apartment building's balconies as the patrol cars' lights swirl purple in the parking lot. The officers tap their pens against their notepads. They cannot erase what happened. Not even my mother can undo what's been done.

* * *
Her words fall over me like a soft sheet, like snowflakes. I follow the sound of her voice and lose the words. I do not need them. She is searching for something I want her to find. I trust her with all of me.

* * *
When I wake up in his bed, my father's smile slants like paint dripping down a fence. Even the sun streaming through the blinds hits me sideways.

* * *
Her lips puff out, eyebrows lifting, when she finds it. She pulls her hand from me, and we examine the two dark splinters lodged deep in the side of her index finger. "These were what he left inside you," she says.

* * *
I wake Christmas Eve thinking about the end of the dream where I took my friend's hand to dig out the slivers because no one should have to carry them. I realize I could not have reached them myself. It dawns on me that my friend really loves me and that it has nothing to do with sex. I think about my father who died fifteen years ago and left pieces of himself behind. I hear him say he loves me, but the words are like snowflakes that melt before they land, and when I get out of bed, there is my friend smiling and wishing me a good morning and offering me a cup of coffee.