Memories of Holidays Past - Asha's Beginnings: Chapter 10
The Memories of Holidays Past
Asha's Beginnings: Chapter 10
Continued from Chapter 9
So many flashes. Always the flashes. They played out like a movie she was forced to watch, Asha’s beginnings. The holidays always opened the curtain for them to flood in.
The tree went up first, every year the same ritual. Dad hauled the box from the storage, grumbling about tangled lights while Mom muttered under her breath. Asha, small and eager, crawled beneath the plastic branches to plug in the string of bulbs. The room bloomed into color, like stepping inside the stained-glass windows at the church she loved. For a moment, the house felt enchanted. Pine scent hung thick and sweet, promising magic.
Counters vanished under flour and sugar. Grandma let her stand on a chair to roll out dough, pressing cookie cutters into gingerbread that smelled of cloves and childhood. They baked cookies of all kinds until every surface was covered,
Evenings brought family to the tree, where they would sit listening to holiday records. Those nights shimmered with fragile magic. The kind of magic children drink without question.
But the flashes never stayed away long.
Her stomach tightened before her mind caught up. The Christmas lights blinked too bright, the tinsel catching the glow like the pain of broken promises. The tree looked sad in the corner, ornaments failing to hide the emptiness beneath. Gatherings rang with hollow laughter, at least for her, as she sat with worry. Every forced smile triggered another reel of Asha's Beginnings.
It started small, those early holidays. Pine scent dragged her to the closet, knees to chest, counting heartbeats until shouting stopped. Wrapping paper crackled like a belt. She sat at the couch’s edge with her plate on her lap, nodding to relatives and answering the same questions at every gathering. How’s school? Growing so fast! Voices blurred around her, but every glass clink rang clear. Inside, the screen flickered: the old neighbor’s lingering hand, low voice in the dark, “family” as prison. Did they see her dizziness? Parents’ arguments cut short at the doorbell, tears to rehearsed smiles. Mom stiffened as alcohol drifted in, men growing louder, stories slurring. How would the night end? Another ambulance, Dad’s heart failing again from too much cheer?
Among the worry slivers of special slipped through. Christmas morning before guests: waking early to see if Santa came, getting her parents their coffee, everyone sitting under the tree to open presents, and then the rush to get to mass. She learned to hold those moments like glass ornaments, turning them carefully so not to drop and break. The holidays always demanded cheer from a heart donning armor in preparation for what was to come, but still, somehow, magic lingered in pockets, baking smells, colored lights, a parent’s rare, unguarded laugh. Small enough to fit inside her. And, sometimes, bright enough to carry through the dark.
One day, the movie might fade. Until then, she kept both truths: the pain that decorated itself in tinsel, and the stubborn, quiet magic that refused to die, even in Asha's Beginnings.
Outside Selene, the snow owl sat on a lightpost. She's been watching and guiding Asha for years beyond years now- she knows the movie playing out, she feels that tiny piece of Asha's heart she keeps hidden from others. The one with a yearning for something that never was, but yet still leaves a memory, even if fragmented.
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