The Cassidy Boys

Chapter Eighteen: Not So Christmas Feelin'

Chapter Eighteen: Not So Christmas Feelin'

     "Oh god," Wren groans. "You let me go out in public like that?" Wren continues to shake her head at the picture in her hands before my mom swipes it from her grasp. After seeing the outfit my older sister's referring to, my mom reaches over and slaps her arm.

     "You look cute."

     Wren grabs the picture back from my mom, and leans over on the couch to show me. "Tell that to the grandma sweater."

     My mom gasps again and stands this time as she rips the picture away from Wren.

     "You look cute," my mom repeats with a pout now coating the phrase, and my shoulders are shaking in laughter as I turn page of the photo album in my lap.

     We dug inside the cubby underneath the stairs with the intention of finding our Christmas decorations, but instead we emptied the whole cramped space only to find the power tools my dad makes excuses not to use, and a few totes filled with old photo albums. As we stared at the huge mess we inevitably made, we also came to the realization that we stored the Christmas decorations in the other junk closet upstairs. However, we still haven't cleaned up the mess, or retrieved the decorations. We decided to take an unofficial break and rehash on old memories instead.

     "Aw, look," my mom coos from her new position on the floor before holding up a picture for Wren and I to see. "My babies back when you were still cute."

     Both my sister and I's mouths drop as we gasp, but my mom's now the one laughing.

     "I'm just kidding. You're still my little munchkins." My mom makes the motion of pinching our cheeks from afar before glancing back down at the pile of photos in her lap.

     The three weeks that kept Wren three hours away went by, and now she's officially on winter break for a whole month, and a half. While I, on the other hand, have three more weeks until holiday break, and I only get a week. One damn week. But I'm still counting down the days.

     I scan my eyes over all the pictures laid out in front of me before flipping the page and coming face to face with a dozen more. A smile tugs at my lips when I see a picture of my younger self blowing out bright candles from a birthday cake shaped like a number five. The smile remains when my eyes flicker to the picture below it, and I find that my younger self rubbed some icing from that cake on my dad's face, not missing the inside of the wire free glasses he happened to be wearing.

     My eyes move over to the parallel page, and I tilt the album to get a full view of a picture of Wren and I standing side by side. Wren has her arm wrapped tightly around my neck in a side hug that shows her extra few inches in height. She happens to be rocking some nice bangs while my hair is more of a ginger red opposed to the darker cinnamon hue I'm rocking now. Our eyes are crinkled from the sunlight, but are smiles are just as bright. Wren's smile has two missing front teeth, while mine appears just a little strained from the part of my cheek that's being pressed right up against the side of Wren's jaw.

     I can feel the happiness practically radiating off this picture, but I can't pinpoint the exact memory, and that thought scares me. Some pictures I can remember vividly, like they were yesterday, but others seem just as lost as my childhood.

     I can joke and say that I'm still a kid because in some respects I am, but it's not the same. My mom always calls us her little munchkins, but we're really not anymore, and that thought should excite me, yet here I am getting all depressed. I can't help it, though. Sometimes we all wish we could turn back the clock, but at the end of the day that only makes the hands turn faster in the opposite direction.