brush through it and you see it's really something else. Wire, or something.”
Poppa laid a hand on Susan's shoulder. “We got to hurry,” he said softly. “The photo guy's gonna be here any minute now. Your mother's going out of her head.”
“I guess there'll still be Christmas if he has to wait five minutes,” Susan said.
Poppa nodded, and smiled. That had been the right answer.
“Found it,” Momma called. “It was in the clothes hamper, for heaven's sake. I might have put it through the washing machine.”
She came into the room but didn't enter the mirror. Poppa took his hand off Susan's shoulder.
“Zoe's almost ready,” Susan said.
Momma came into the mirror. The air took on noisy possibilities, an electric impatience.
“Let me finish,” Momma said. She took the brush from Susan and forced it through Zoe's hair so hard that buried thoughts were pulled to the surface of her brain. Zoe let her eyes water, let the thoughts boil. She didn't make a sound.
Later, they all sat in the afternoon dusk of the living room while Mr. Fleming made his adjustments. Mr. Fleming was a small, busy man with heavy glasses and an astonished aspect. Something invisible, known only to him, seemed always to be happening a foot in front of his thin, serious face. His camera stood on three stork legs, aiming its blind eye at the room.
“Just relax, everybody,” he said, lowering a lamp. “This 'll only take a few minutes. Right? A few minutes.”
Zoe sat on the sofa with Billy. He wore his blue blazer, with a red handkerchief peeking out of the breast pocket like a proud secret. Billy sat to make himself bigger, with his legs wide and his skinny arms splayed on the cushions. He believed things were important but not necessarily serious.
“Great dress,” he said to Zoe from the side of his mouth. She hunched up. Her forehead burned. Sometimes Billy meant what he said and sometimes he meant the opposite. The dress was green, tied at the middle with a red bow the size of a cabbage. When Momma brought it home, Zoe had shrugged in haphazard assent. She had somehow not fully understood that she was meant to wear it, and soon.
“Let's have the kids on the sofa,” Momma said. “And Con, you and I can stand back here.” She had about her an air of avid, defiant sorrow. She was already preparing to be dissatisfied with all the proofs Mr. Fleming would send.
“Ma,” Billy said. “That's what we do every year.”
“Well, professor,” Momma said, “do you have a better idea?”
“I want to stand this year,” Susan said. “I look fat when I'm sitting down.”
Susan wore the dress she'd fought for, white ruffles with an emerald sash. Momma had insisted it wasn't Christmasy enough.
But Susan wanted what she wanted with a glacial singularity. Momma's desires were too far-flung. She wanted Susan in a more Christmasy dress but at the same time she wanted new cordovan loafers for Billy and a different hairstyle for herself (would it look too young?) and six boxes of white Christmas lights instead of the colored ones she'd bought. Susan could always win that way, by knowing with a jeweler's precision.
Momma said, “It'll look funny if three of us are standing behind the sofa and just Zoe and Billy are sitting on it,”
“Why don't you sit between Zoe and Bill,” Poppa said to Momma, “and Susie and I can stand back here.”
Momma's mouth made its line. It said its no, silently, while Momma turned inside herself. She wore a red dress with a sprig of holly and three gold glass balls trembling at the breast.
“What if you and I sat on the sofa,” she said. “And all three kids stood in back?”
“Zoe's too short,” Billy said. “All you'll see is the top of her head.”
Momma nodded. “All right,” she said. “Fine. Whatever. I'll sit. Susan, you stand in back with your father.”
She was lost in multiplicity. She wanted to stand behind the sofa with Poppa but she also wanted new records of Christmas carols and a set of dishes hand-painted with candy canes and a real pearl necklace to give to Susan for high school graduation.
“Get ready,” Mr. Fleming said. “Get in your positions. Right?”
Momma put herself on the sofa between Billy and Zoe. She blued the air with her nervous shining and her pride, the tiny music of her earrings. In three weeks the cards would be back from the printer: Season's Greetings from the Stassos Family.
“Mr. Fleming?”