Chapter 1 - The Lingerie on the Lawn
At 4:17 on Christmas Eve, I walked up my parents’ driveway carrying groceries and watched one of my bras float down from my second-story bedroom window and land across the antlers of their inflatable reindeer.
For several seconds, I simply stared.
Then my green cashmere sweater flew out.
A pair of jeans followed. Three blouses came next, separating in midair before settling across the snowy front lawn like surrender flags.
Finally, my younger sister Vanessa leaned halfway out the window wearing a Santa hat.
“Matilda, can you move your car?” she called. “I don’t want your boots hitting it.”
I looked down. My boots had already been thrown out. One lay beside the mailbox. The other had landed heel-first in a snowbank, with only three inches of leather visible.
I looked up at Vanessa. “Why are my clothes flying?”
She rolled her eyes. “I need closet space for my vacation wardrobe.” Then she disappeared.
A moment later, my winter coat sailed out.
It was Christmas Eve in Connecticut. There were six inches of snow on the ground.
My mother opened the front door. “Oh, good, you’re here,” she said. “Did you remember the rosemary?”
I pointed toward the lawn. Mom followed my finger. My gray trousers hung over the mailbox. A red blouse had caught on a hedge. My silver sequin jacket had landed across the inflatable reindeer’s back, making him look surprisingly glamorous.
“Oh,” Mom said.
“Vanessa is throwing my clothes out the window.”
She shrugged. “You have too many clothes anyway.”
That sentence changed my Christmas.
I was thirty-one and had been a professional makeup artist since I was nineteen. Not a hobbyist. I had spent twelve years doing weddings, television appearances, editorial shoots, fashion campaigns, and celebrity events. My calendar regularly booked five months ahead.
Vanessa described this as “painting faces.”
Vanessa had tried roughly eight careers by twenty-eight: selling candles, dog accessories, vintage clothes, luxury picnics, manifestation coaching, travel planning, and being a “mushroom consultant.” Every career required supplies that invaded our parents' house.
Vanessa needed space. Everyone else moved.
I had left home at twenty-four, but I still kept part of my professional wardrobe in my old bedroom because my parents lived conveniently between my apartment and several work venues. Vanessa still lived at home. In November, she announced she was going to Tulum. White, cream, and beige linen packages arrived daily. By mid-December, her closet was full. Then the guest room. Then the hallway.
“Mom,” I said, “tell her to bring everything back inside.”
“Matilda, please. It’s Christmas Eve.”
Dad appeared behind her. He looked outside. “Is that your bra on Rudolph?”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly. “I’m going to the basement.”
“Coward,” I called.
“Correct.”
Another garment came out the window. My black evening dress caught on a tree branch, opened like a parachute, then floated down onto Dad’s illuminated Christmas penguin.
Vanessa appeared at the top of the stairs. “Can you please start picking everything up? It looks messy.”
Mom stepped between us. “Enough. We’re not doing this on Christmas.”
“Then have her put my things back.”
Mom sighed. “You have too many clothes anyway.”
Revenge, people think, begins with rage. Mine began with silence.
One by one, I collected everything from the snow. I packed my clothes, my makeup supplies, my overnight bag, and my Christmas gifts into my car.
Mom came outside. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to Grandma’s.”
“You’re ruining Christmas over clothes?”
Vanessa appeared behind Mom. “You’re seriously leaving? But you’re still doing my makeup tonight, right?”
I turned around slowly. “You threw my clothes out a second-story window.”
“That has nothing to do with makeup,” she insisted. “I already planned an ethereal winter look.”
I got into my car and drove to Grandma Evelyn’s house forty minutes away.
Grandma was eighty-two and possessed the emotional temperament of a retired mob accountant. Over tea, I told her everything. When I finished, Grandma led me into her office and unlocked a filing cabinet. She handed me a bank statement bearing my name.
It was enough for the down payment on the commercial studio space in downtown Hartford I had been dreaming about for three years.
“We created investment accounts for both granddaughters,” Grandma said. “I decided in October to give you yours. I watched you work. You build things. You don't buy crystals and expect the universe to pay your rent.”
“What about Vanessa’s account?” I asked.
May you like
Grandma folded her hands. “I haven’t decided. I’ve been watching her too.”
I looked out at my car in the driveway, snow dusting its hood. The storm outside was growing colder, but for the first time in years, I felt completely warm.
