Nøtteknekkeren by Felicitas Ivey

I TOOK one more deep breath in the bathroom, like my therapist taught me, to combat stress. I had been in therapy after an accident when I was younger. I’d had all sorts of issues then. I liked to think I had fewer of them now, but I was sure my brother Rik would point out I just had different ones.
    All I had to do was go to a Christmas party. I just had to walk out this door, have a nonalcoholic drink or two, and pretend to be normal. I could do that for a couple of hours. Hell, I did that for most of my life now, since I wasn’t comfortable around large or even small groups of people. I would force myself to not remember how strange and magical Christmases at Uncle Yvo’s house had been for me when I was growing up, and the hope I had that it hadn’t changed.
    Before my accident, Christmas had been an even more wondrous holiday for me because it was always here. After Rik decided it was better if we celebrated Christmas away from here, Christmas had become dull and colorless. Rik always had an excuse not to come here, citing business or illness or “forgetting” about the invitation, until this year. This year Rik had decided to accept Uncle Yvo’s invitation, and I had been overjoyed.
    Christmases with Rik hadn’t been enjoyable for a number of reasons, and part of me wanted to say it was because I’d grown up, but I thought that was a lie. Rik and I were brothers, but we weren’t really close. And most of the time, Christmas with Rik had been some sort of awkward party filled with his friends, people I didn’t know and had nothing in common with. Those days had been more stressful than joyful, and I was always overjoyed to slip back to my life when the holiday was over.
    It wasn’t like I didn’t love my brother Rik, because you were supposed to love family. It was more that Rik and I had never agreed on anything, and the ten-year gap in our ages didn’t help. Rik didn’t think I should be gay. Rik didn’t like that I wasn’t interested in working for the family company. Rik didn’t like that I was in some small town in Vermont repairing computers and not living in New York City with him, doing something important. But we’d never been close, so I wasn’t going to turn my life around to please him.
    I had sensed the Christmas magic that filled this house as soon I walked through its door, which was why I was having the small nervous breakdown in the bathroom right now. I breathed in and out, thought soothing mantras, and wondered why I had left my Valium at home.
    “Do you need anything?” Uncle Yvo asked on the other side of the door.
    “I’ll be out in a second,” I assured him, even though my brain was stuck on the screaming-helplessly part of this evening, wondering why I had agreed to come, because I hadn’t been comfortable around people since I woke up from the accident. I’d gotten better, but I’d been at too many bad college parties and Rik’s parties not to instinctively panic at the thought of facing a bunch of strangers, even here. One more breath and I felt in control enough to get through the party. I opened the door and almost walked into Uncle Yvo.
    “Um…,” I hummed in embarrassment.
    Uncle Yvo looked up at me with a mischievous smile. It wasn’t that I was so tall, it was that my uncle had a twisted back, which gave him a permanent stoop and shortened his height about a foot.
    Yvo had been a fixture in my life while I was kid, even if he wasn’t a blood relative but only an honorary uncle. I hadn’t seen the man in a decade, but I would have sworn he hadn’t changed a bit. It could just be wishful thinking on my part, but Yvo seemed ageless.
    “It’s just Christmas,” Yvo teased.
    “Christmas,” I echoed with a sigh.
    I never got excited about the holiday anymore. It was just another day, and not a happy one, dealing with Rik’s snobby friends and their vicious tongues.
    “You used to be more excited about it,” Yvo told me, looking a little concerned. He