You woke up on Christmas Day at 10 o'clock in the morning. It was cold but the sun was shining a little too brightly and had melted the frost off all of the cars. The paperboy had delivered the news late. Santa Claus still came to his house. The folks with fireplaces had lit them and we both could smell the burning tissue paper mingling with the pressed logs purchased from hardware stores and grocers. You were annoyed that the front page of your paper had included a large color photograph of a family shopping for a tree that would be trash in a matter of days.

The phone rang four times before you decided to answer and lie that you forgot that it was Christmas today. You had played the same game two months before on your birthday. I laughed and asked if my gift for you had arrived yet. You lied again and said no. I cursed the postal system but thought that I had picked up on deceit in your voice. You half-heartedly begged to know the contents of the package but seemed more interested in ESPN, which I could hear straining the walls of your apartment. We parted simply and I felt bad that I hadn't paid the extra ten dollars to ship your gift express.

You pulled the tags off the red sweater I had bought you from the Gap. It was made of wool and useless in your warm winter. It had seemed like a good idea to me, freezing in the Boston wind. I asked you at Thanksgiving if you wouldn't mind that I stayed home for Christmas. You said you didn't and meant it. I love all my children but I love you the most. I was testing you but was too proud to ask you to come to my house.

You moved away when you were 18 and I was 39. When you were in my belly, I promised you that we would never part, but that was before I had three other boys and a husband to look after. Sometimes I think about you and the long Sundays we spent together before you were born. It was my only day off and I would lay on the floor with my feet up on pillows and eat Neapolitan ice cream, one flavor at a time, until the whole carton was gone and I had to retch. When you were being born, I felt like you were fighting with me to stay inside. It was the only other time I hated you. When you left me, I cried for two hours upstairs, but then it was time to make dinner. After that I didn't cry about it anymore.

The red sweater didn't fit you properly; it was small for your broad chest. You wore it anyway, but pushed the sleeves up past your elbows because it was too warm for wool. I bought that sweater three weeks before and I was thinking that my handsome blue-eyed boy would look fabulous in it. I always think of you as a boy and that is why the sweater was too small. When I stopped buying your clothes, you wore a medium.

In my house, I am basting ham and making my husband help the kids put batteries in their new toys. I am thinking about you all the while and wondering what you are doing at certain moments. I think of you reading your paper over a steaming cup of something, wearing the leather slippers I bought for you. I imagine that you are going to church with that beautiful girl who folds your towels the same way I do. I imagine, that you are thinking of me too. Instead, you are alone in your apartment watching ESPN and thinking of that beautiful girl and how you will never get to have sex with her again.

I had such a nice Christmas; Leonard's parents came over and took the boys to the park to play in the snow. We all sat down together and ate ham and mashed potatoes. Leonard gave me a gold bracelet that I had been eying. We watched "It's a Wonderful Life," in the evening and the boys went to bed early, full of purchased happiness. Leonard and I cleaned up the mess of wrapping paper and curling ribbon and fooled around on the couch until Christmas was over.

I woke up early that next morning and lay in bed watching the sun crawl up the bedspread and into my eyes. I made scrambled eggs and fried leftover ham. I was thinking of when it would be okay to call you next. I worried a little bit about the red sweater.

When I called you the next day, a feminine voice answered and asked to whom was she speaking. I told her that I was your mother and she asked if I could tell her my name. I told her. She asked for my phone number and said that she would have you call me right back. I knew that this was not the beautiful girl. Five minutes later, a man called me and told me that you were dead and had been dead since early Christmas Day. You left a note for the beautiful girl and a note for me. In my note, you apologized for not coming home for Christmas and thanked me for the red sweater.