pretend to know anything about luminarias, and I’d never even been to Albuquerque. I only knew the dorm’s fire code was strict. “We can try to put them outside,” I said. “We could see if anyone says anything.”
“Forget it.” Inez leaned back on her hands and looked at a spot of newspaper on the floor. “I hate it here. It’s stupid to even try.” She looked up and out the window. Her brown eyes glistened, but her face was perfectly composed. “I can’t wait for break. The second I finish my last final, I’m gone. I’m in my car. I’m going home.”
I looked at the floor, and then back at her face. Here was someone who hated the dorm as much as I did, or more than I did. And this someone was younger than I was, and, in so many ways, farther away from home. I’d thought I had it so hard, being a little older than everyone else.
“Let’s just keep making them,” my mother said. Her own hands never stopped moving. “I don’t know what else we can do with all this sand.” She reached for another paper bag. “We’ll figure out what to do with them later.”
I had heard this line from her many times. Over the years, on cold afternoons and in Girl Scout meetings, whoever was under my mother’s care had been encouraged to make more cookies than anyone could eat, more ornaments than anyone could hang, and more candle holders than anyone could possibly want. And if our creations burned, broke, or just looked stupid—no big deal. It was all about the making for my mother. She was never that concerned with the end result.
But Inez was listless as she dropped handfuls of sand into a bag, and the look on her face made it clear that she was only continuing to be polite to my mother. We worked without speaking. I could hear the sound of sand falling, the paper bags crinkling. Gretchen shifted and sighed.
My mother nudged me. “Do you have any holiday music?”
I looked up from my paper bag. “Do I have any holiday music?”
She nodded.
I shook my head. She seemed surprised, but no I didn’t have any holiday music. I was a junior in college. I lived, essentially, in a high-ceilinged box. But she seemed disappointed, as if, after all these years, I had finally admitted that despite all her years of careful teaching, I didn’t write thank-you notes, or wash my hands after using the bathroom. My mother had a lot of holiday music. Her favorites were Handel’s Messiah and an album that ended with Judy Garland’s sad voice singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” I’d heard all that and more played over and over every December of my childhood. Her music was maybe packed in a cardboard box now, probably out in the van.
A girl across the room raised a sandy hand. “I have Jingle Cats.”
We all looked at her. She was pretty, with long, curly red hair. She smiled, revealing braces.
“You know, the cats that sing? They’re real cats. Meowy Christmas?” She looked back at all of us, incredulous. “Oh my God. You don’t know it? My whole family loves it. And we’re Jewish.” She shrugged, shaking a bag full of sand. “They do ‘Hava Nagila,’ too.”
The cats helped quite a bit. I put the CD in my little player, and almost right from the start it was funny. It wasn’t so funny that you would die laughing, but it was hard to listen to and keep a straight face. By the end of “Silent Night,” even Inez had cracked a smile. We all kept working, filling the bags with sand, which felt smooth and soothing in my hands. I felt as if I were decompressing, some hidden muscle in me finally relaxed. We were all quiet for a while, and there was only the sound of the cats and the music and sometimes some of us laughing.
Of course, I thought of who would love this, who should’ve been in the room. I touched my mother’s arm. “Did you ask Marley?” I whispered.
She nodded without looking at me.
“Is she in her room?”
She nodded again. She still didn’t look at me. But when I stood up, shaking sand off my hands, she reached above my boot and squeezed my knee.
The gray carpet in front of Marley’s room already looked a little more faded than it did in the rest of the hallway—it was the only section that