A fragment from a work in progress, posted in time for Christmas…

Each year for Christmas they bought a family gift. It was usually a large item, something that the whole family could use: a video game system, a large-screen television, a home entertainment system. In the early days, when they were first married and the kids were just starting to appear, the family gift was more practical: a new car to replace the old, a repair to the roof, a refrigerator. This year, in an effort to reverse some of the effects of aging and because the kids were nearly all grown—all of them either in college or finished with college and starting on their own, except for Rita, their ten-year-old adopted daughter who they affectionately called ‘their morenita’—Francis X. Candlewick splurged on himself and opted for a home gym.

The gym was an all-in-one variety and fit in a large cardboard box. Candlewick refused to pay the extra charge to have the box delivered to their home and so he folded the rear seat down and fed the large box through the maw of the trunk and onto the folded-down back seat. Mrs. Candlewick had to put her seat all the way forward, to the dismay of her knees, and the trunk would not stay shut without the help of some twine provided by the department store. The twine snapped on the way home and the trunk popped into view through Candlewick’s rearview mirror. He debated stopping to retie the trunk but it was cold and the air was filled with a frozen mist. It was warm in the car and a Christmas tune he hadn’t heard in a while came on the radio. If he drove slowly and was careful to compensate for the lack of visibility, he could be home without incident. Candlewick put on the hazard lights and switched carefully into the slower lane.

Mrs. Candlewick hated Christmas. She hated the preparation, the obligation, the waste of time and money. She hated buying presents for people she barely cared for. She hated the rushing and the stress and the pressure. Christmas meant wasted weekends consumed with what she considered busy work. Each night was take-out dinners or time and money dropped in restaurants or else Mrs. Candlewick would have to cook, something for which she had neither the time nor the energy. She was tired; lately she hadn’t been sleeping well. She was worried about their finances. Her husband had a good job but over the years, his raises had just barely kept pace with inflation. Mrs. Candlewick was currently in her third career, starting each new career at the relative bottom. Having sent three girls to college had depleted much of their savings. Mr. and Mrs. Candlewick, now in their late forties, were earning as much as they had in their early thirties. Meanwhile, things became more expensive each year.

“No room at the shin,” Candlewick smiled on this Christmas Eve.

But Mrs. Candlewick was not amused. Every bump in the road was felt in Mrs. Candlewick’s back. She had twisted her body to squeeze between the seat and the dashboard. Her back was turned to the passenger’s door, leaning against the armrest, and her knees were bunched around her chest. This home gym was an extravagance. They could barely afford it and, typically, her husband chose a higher-end model with features he would never use. And, also typically, her husband would use the gym for a few weeks, maybe a month before tiring of it. The colossal waste of money pressed against the back of her seat.

Candlewick began to hum the song on the radio. His fingers rapped the steering wheel. “So what are we doing about dinner?” he asked, when suddenly their car was hit from behind by a car Candlewick never saw coming.

In an unexpected instant, Mrs. Candlewick felt a blinding white flash of pain and it seemed as though her entire being was instantly condensed, compressed to a hyperdense dot that was infinitesimal yet infinite. An understanding of herself, of who she was and of all she had ever done or was meant to do, had settled upon her. Yet at the same time she felt dispersed, spread wide with the sudden violence of seed spilled upon a threshing floor. A fearlessness, a lightness, an easiness, a happiness shined on her and through her, surrounding her and penetrating her, nourishing and sustaining her, becoming almost indistinguishable from who she was.

Mrs. Candlewick’s legs were broken and her ribs were cracked and her forehead shattered the windshield. The counterforce of the airbag snapped her spine. It took the firemen quite some time to cut through the car to remove the home gym—which was now totally unusable—and finally Mrs. Candlewick. In hospital days later, a bright fluorescent fixture guided her over the long distance from her reverie to a consciousness dimmed by anodyne and disinclined to noise and light, to scents and tastes and touch. Christmas has passed; Mrs. Candlewick awoke on the Epiphany.

Candlewick was at his wife’s bedside when she came to. His daughter, Rita, was in the room as well. It took Mrs. Candlewick a moment to understand who stood before her, to reacquaint herself with this other life she had left. The sight of her husband made her smile. When she noticed Rita, she beamed with happiness.

Mrs. Candlewick parted her lips but could not speak. Her throat was dry. She managed to croak out a simple syllable while raising her arm slowly above the bed. Candlewick caught her hand before it fell back to the sheets. He squeezed it with both hands and a shy tear formed behind his eyelids.