The Fallout: The Carter Family Christmas Special: Dec 24th - CHRISTMAS EVE
A broken family walks back into their parents’ house and finds one night of peace they didn’t know they needed.
Bobby's phone rang at 8pm. FaceTime. All three of them already on the call.
He answered. Four faces on the screen, all looking like death.
Nobody said anything for a solid ten seconds.
"I can't sit here," Wanda finally said. "I can't do it."
"Yeah." Wallace.
Bella was crying. Not sobbing. Just tears running down her face while she stared at the phone.
"It's Christmas Eve," Bobby said. To nobody. To all of them.
"We should be together." Bella's voice cracked. "We can't just sit in our fucking apartments alone after everything."
"Where?" Wallace asked. "Where do we even go?"
Silence.
"Mom and Dad's," Bobby said.
Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.
Then Wanda: "The house is empty. No tree. No lights. Nothing. Just that empty fucking house."
"So we fix it." Bella sat up. Wiped her face. "We go there and we fix it."
"Fix what?" Wallace.
"All of it. We decorate. We get a tree. We put up lights. We make it Christmas."
"Bella."
"I'm serious. What else are we gonna do? Sit here and feel sorry for ourselves? I'm tired, Wallace. I'm so goddamn tired. Let's just DO something."
Bobby looked at Brandon's door. Still closed. Still quiet. "I'm in."
Wanda nodded on the screen. "Me too."
Wallace rubbed his face. "Yeah. Fuck it. Let's do it."
"I'm texting everyone," Bella said. "Family. Church folks. Neighbors. Tell them to come by tonight. Bring food. We're having Christmas Eve at Mom and Dad's."
"A party?" Bobby.
"Why the hell not? When's the last time we actually had one?"
Nobody answered that.
"One hour," Bella said. "Meet there in one hour."
The call ended.
Bobby pulled up to the house first. Brandon was in the passenger seat, staring out the window.
"We're decorating Grandma and Grandpa's house?" Brandon asked.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Bobby didn't have an answer for that. "Because we need to do something."
Wallace's car pulled in behind them. Then Wanda. Then Bella with Billy.
They all stood in the driveway for a moment, looking at the house. Dark. Empty. No lights. No wreath on the door. Nothing.
"This is depressing as hell," Wallace said.
"Yeah." Bobby unlocked the front door.
They walked inside. The house felt cold. Not temperature cold. Soul cold. Like it knew its people were gone and didn't know what to do with itself anymore.
"Okay," Bella said, clapping her hands together once. "Tree first. We need a tree."
"Where are we getting a tree at 9pm on Christmas Eve?" Wanda asked.
"Home Depot's open till ten," Bobby said. "They'll have something left."
"Lights too," Wallace added. "We need lights for the house."
"I'll go with you," Bella said to Bobby. "Wallace, you and Wanda start pulling out whatever decorations Mom had stored. Check the garage. Check the hall closet."
"What about us?" Brandon asked. Billy was standing next to him, quiet.
"You two help Uncle Wallace and Aunt Wanda," Bella said. "Find all the Christmas stuff you can."
Brandon and Billy nodded and took off toward the garage.
Home Depot was a wasteland. Half the lights were burned out overhead. The Christmas section looked like it had been looted.
"This is what's left?" Bella stared at the scraggly trees leaning against the wall.
"It's Christmas Eve," Bobby said. "What did you expect?"
Bella walked down the line of trees. Touched a few branches. Stopped at one that was maybe six feet tall, half the needles gone, leaning hard to the left.
"This one," she said.
"That one's garbage."
"It's perfect."
Bobby looked at her. She was serious.
"It's a Charlie Brown tree, Bella."
"Exactly." She grabbed it. "Help me load it."
They threw the tree in Bobby's truck bed. Went back inside for lights. Bought every box that was left. Outdoor lights. Indoor lights. Didn't matter. They bought it all.
On the drive back, Bella stared out the window.
"You okay?" Bobby asked.
"No."
"Yeah."
Silence for a while. Then Bella: "I texted everyone. Told them 7pm. Food. Drinks. Christmas Eve at Mom and Dad's."
"How many people said yes?"
"Everyone."
Bobby glanced at her. "Everyone?"
"Cousins. Aunts. Uncles. Pastor Williams. Half the church. The Johnsons from next door. The Mitchells from across the street. Everyone, Bobby."
"That's a lot of people."
"Good. I want the house full. I want it loud. I don't want to sit in that quiet fucking house and think about Mom and Dad being gone."
Bobby didn't argue.
When they got back, Wallace and Wanda had found everything. Boxes of ornaments. Strings of lights that may or may not work. A bin full of outdoor decorations. Plastic reindeer. An inflatable snowman that was half deflated.
"Where was all this?" Bobby asked.
"Garage attic," Wallace said. "Took forever to find it."
Brandon and Billy were sitting on the floor surrounded by tangled lights, trying to untangle them.
"This is impossible," Brandon said.
"Keep trying," Wanda told him.
Bobby hauled the tree inside. Bella followed with the boxes of new lights.
"That's the tree?" Wallace stared at it.
"Don't start," Bella said.
"It's got like six branches."
"It's got character."
"It's got a death wish."
Bella ignored him. "Bobby, set it up in the corner by the window. Wallace, you're on outdoor lights. Wanda, help me with the ornaments once the tree is up."
They worked. Bobby fighting with the tree stand. Wallace on a ladder outside stringing lights along the roof. Wanda sorting through ornaments, pulling out the ones that weren't broken. Bella untangling lights that the boys gave up on.
Brandon and Billy ran back and forth, bringing things from the garage, plugging things in, testing lights.
It took two hours. But slowly, the house started to look like Christmas.
The tree went up. Crooked. Sad. But covered in lights and ornaments it looked almost beautiful.
The outside lights worked. White icicle lights along the roof. Colored lights around the door.
The inflatable snowman got plugged in and slowly rose from the dead in the front yard.
At 6:45pm, they stood in the driveway looking at the house.
Lights everywhere. Glowing. Warm.
"It looks good," Wanda said quietly.
"Yeah," Bobby agreed.
"Mom would've liked it," Wallace said.
Nobody responded to that.
Then Bella: "People are gonna start showing up soon. Let's get inside."
The first knock came at 7:02pm. Aunt Shirley with a casserole. Then Uncle Marcus with a case of beer. Then the cousins. Then the church folks. Then the neighbors.
By 7:30pm the house was packed.
Food covered every surface in the kitchen. Someone had brought a ham. Someone else brought mac and cheese. Three different people brought sweet potato pie. Collard greens. Cornbread. Fried chicken. Deviled eggs. Potato salad that started an argument about who made it better.
Music was playing. Old school. The Temptations. Marvin Gaye. Stevie Wonder.
Brandon and Billy were running through the house with the other kids. Playing. Laughing. Being kids for the first time in weeks.
The four siblings stood in the living room watching everyone. Their family. Their community. All here. All together.
"This was a good idea," Wallace said to Bella.
She nodded. "Yeah."
By 10pm, most people had left. The older folks. The families with young kids. Pastor Williams gave them all hugs before he walked out the door.
"Your parents would be proud," he said. "Merry Christmas."
The door closed.
Only a few people remained. The cousins. A couple of friends from church. The core group.
Someone pulled out a deck of cards.
"Spades?" Marcus asked.
"Hell yes," Wallace said.
They set up at the dining room table. Bobby and Bella. Wallace and Wanda. Marcus and his wife Kim as the third team.
The kids had crashed hours ago. Sprawled out in the guest bedroom, in sleeping bags on the floor, wherever they landed.
Cards got dealt.
"Six books," Bobby said.
"You're overbidding," Bella told him.
"I got this."
"You better."
Three hands in, Marcus reneged.
Wallace saw it immediately. "Hold up. Hold the hell up."
"What?" Marcus.
"You just played a spade."
"So?"
"You played a heart two hands ago when Bobby led spades."
Marcus froze. Looked at his cards. "Shit."
"SHIT?" Wallace stood up. "You reneged. You know what happens when you renege."
"It was an accident."
"Don't matter. You reneged. Game over. You lose three books."
"That's not fair."
"That's the rules."
Kim was laughing. "Baby, you messed up."
"I didn't mean to."
Bobby was grinning. "Renege is renege, Marcus."
"Y'all are ridiculous," Bella said, but she was laughing too.
The argument went on for ten minutes. Loud. Dramatic. Everyone talking shit. Finally they settled it and kept playing.
More drinks. More trash talk. More laughter.
They switched to dominoes at midnight.
Bones slapping on the table. Someone counted wrong. Another argument. More laughter.
Wanda was drunk. Happy drunk. Smiling for the first time in days.
Wallace was telling stories. Making everyone laugh.
Bella was quiet but present. Watching everyone. Almost peaceful.
Bobby was just grateful to not be sitting in his apartment staring at the walls.
They played until 3am. Until they couldn't keep their eyes open anymore.
Marcus and Kim left. The cousins left. The friends left.
Just the four siblings and the two boys, asleep in the back room.
They sat in the living room, in the glow of the Christmas tree. Exhausted. Drunk. Quiet.
"Merry Christmas," Wanda said softly.
"Merry Christmas," they all said back.
Nobody moved. They just sat there. In their parents' house. Surrounded by the wreckage of their lives. But together.
Eventually they drifted off. Wallace on the couch. Wanda in the recliner. Bobby and Bella on the floor with pillows and blankets.
The house was quiet except for soft breathing and the hum of the Christmas tree lights.
Outside, the world kept turning. But inside, for just one night, they had peace.
END OF PART 13: CHRISTMAS EVE
